As expected, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied emergency relief seeking to reverse the district court’s denial of the preliminary injunction to stop the UC’s COVID vaccine mandate for members of the UC community who already had the disease. The thinking behind the lawsuit was that having a narrow group of plaintiffs who already had the disease, given the lack of definitive evidence that vaccinating these folks is needed or creates a significant proven benefit, might at least get a judge to seriously consider the legality of the vaccine mandate for this small group.

Well, so far it hasn’t. But as I pointed out in previous posts, the play was always to try to get this before the Supremes as quickly as possible via this tactic of quick appeals seeking emergency relief. Per previous, that how the Cuomo and the California cases all of which involved restrictions to church services got decided by the Supremes so fast.

My friend and colleague Greg Glaser has very recently filed an emergency application to the Supremes. The way it works is that papers are filed with the Supreme Court justice who covers the circuit. You all recall that recently, Justice Barrett rejected the emergency application filed by Indiana University students challenging IU’s general COVID mandate, without even referring the case to the entire court. I remind you all that she is a Republican whose elevation to the Supremes caused the switch in the results from the earlier California Supreme Court decisions upholding the restrictions on religious services to the Cuomo decision which held similar restrictions to violate the religious provision of the First Amendment.

The justice overseeing the Ninth Circuit is Elana Kagan, a democrat, hard-core liberal, and part of the then majority which previously upheld the California restrictions to religious services (which is now the minority on the issue). In my view (and the view of many others) Liberals give much greater latitude/deference and trust to the government than Republicans or libertarians. So, Greg is going to have quite an uphill battle to convince Justice Kagan to intervene or send the case up to the full court to seek the votes necessary for the court to hear the case on an emergency basis. We should know the outcome of Greg’s application by early next week.

Finally, lately, Greg Glaser is everywhere in challenges to mandated government action. I want to dispel the almost Shakesperean rumor that Greg Glaser is not a real person, and that this name is being used by a secret cabal of a couple of dozen attorneys pumping out lawsuits all using the name “Greg Glaser.”

I have met Greg Glaser and I can confirm that he is a real person. That much I can vouch for. That there are a dozen lawyers using his names on papers, I can’t, because I don’t see how one person (who is actually a full-time practicing real estate attorney) can put out all the paper that gets filed under his name. The only thing I can assure readers is that I’m not using his name on papers I file. But I do agree with the prevailing rumor that he’s got a team of lawyers filing papers using his name, and that number may in fact be bigger than what is rumored, based on the volume of paper being filed.

Here are his papers to the Supremes in this case which he just filed a couple of days ago. You will like them.

SCOTUS-Brief-Writ-of-Mandamus-Request-AFLDS-v-UC

Rick Jaffe, Esq.