Yesterday afternoon, Hayward Superior Court Judge Richard Seabolt issued his formal decision denying our preliminary injunction motion. Here it is:  Kiel v. UC Regents HG20-072843 Order Denying Preliminary Injunction Basically, he doesn’t think we made our case on the facts or the law. He reads all the lawsuits which upheld SB 277 (which removed the Personal Belief Exemption from California law) as strongly supporting the constitutionality of requiring adults to be vaccinated with a vaccine that is not related to…

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It is being reported that today, December 3rd, the Supreme Court reversed and sent back another case filed by a church complaining about restrictions on services, this time by the California  governor. The Court hasn’t posted the decision yet so I don’t know the details. Here is what I figure: The district court upheld the restriction under the the Supreme Court’s prior cases in the summer. (here is my post about the South Bay case:  https://wp.me/p7pwQD-FW  ) The case  went…

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Some have asked for an update on Ken Stoller’s medical board case, and the other board cases I am working on, so here it is. The Closing Arguments by the parties were submitted to the ALJ on November 9th. I won’t bore you all with our closing which gets into the weeds of the ten cases, but for grins, here is the introduction. I decided to start by abstracting the whole case and our position. “To begin, let’s present the…

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As you all know by now, on Wednesday night the Supreme Court stayed enforcement of NY Governor Cuomo’s restrictions on religious gatherings, in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York v Andrew Cuomo. It is is just an temporary stay pending appeal, so technically it is not necessarily the Court’s final word on the matter, but nonetheless it is extremely significant as a predictor of future cases. It also may have significance for those interested in the mandatory vaccine issue….

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As most of you know, at the beginning of the November 5th hearing on our Motion for a Preliminary Injunction. the judge announced that he was denying the motion and then went to give a lengthy explanation of why. That was followed by a spirited back and forth between me and the judge about why I thought he was wrong.  The discussion didn’t change his mind, but in fairness, the judge had reviewed the voluminous papers submitted by both sides….

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Now that our Preliminary Injunction motion to stop the UC’s Flu Mandate has been denied, some have asked what’s next. Some have asked about an appeal. Given how long it takes to get an appellate court to review a denial of preliminary injunction (technically it’s not an appeal but a writ of mandate), an appeal/writ, even if successful, would not provide a timely remedy to those of you who have to be on campus now or soon. So, because I’m…

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We just finished a two-hour oral argument. At the beginning, the judge said his tentative decision was to deny the motion. Basically, between the CDC’s recommendation that everyone should get the flu shot and all the infectious disease experts the UC had, he was convinced that the UC could constitutionally require the UC community to get the shot. He had obviously thought about this a great deal, but in cases like this, once a judge makes up his mind, there…

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Finally, the day of our hearing has arrived. It’s at 2:30 PM Pacific time, today November 5, 2020. Here is the link to watch or listen to. Most likely, the judge will not announce his decision today, but will take it under advisement, but you never know, he could say something about how he is going to rule, so literally stay tuned. http://www.alameda.courts.ca.gov/Pages.aspx/Live-Stream-521 good thoughts, well-wishes and prayers grratefully accepted. Rick Jaffe, Esq.

Normal practice in most cases is that a tentative decision is issued the day before the “hearing” date, which normally is just an opportunity for the losing party to tell the judge why she is wrong. In big cases, like the State case against Uber and Lyft, the judge heard the argument, reserved decision, and three days later issued a ruling. That’s what is going to happen in our case. The judge has postponed the hearing until Thursday at 2:30…

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I would like to be able to tell you all precisely what the status is on the UC Flu mandate issue, but I can’t. Here is what I know and can say for sure. Under the two executive orders, compliance with the mandate was required by November 1st, which is tomorrow The judge in the injunction action in putting the hearing off from October 22nd to November 4th told the UC not to take any action against any UC member…

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