Former workers sue LA City over vaccine mandate

In August 2021, FOX 11 reported on the air that, the LA City Council unanimously approved an ordinance requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for all city employees except for those with medical or religious exemptions.

The Mayor at the time, Eric Garcetti, said that any city employee who refused to get vaccinated by December 18 of that year should be prepared to lose their job.

He said it was about protecting the health and safety of the city's workforce and the people they serve.

Terminated LAPD officer Michael McMahon and others have fought back for two years. At a news conference announcing the legal filing McMahon said Former Mayor Garcetti and current Mayor Bass didn't have the authority then and you do not have it now.

McMahon and 55 others are suing the former and current mayors and the city of LA over what they call, "a violent assault on the individual's constitutional right to refuse a product that's been given an Emergency-Use-Authorization or EUA like the COVID-19 vaccine was." The suit was filed Friday.

McMahon added, "As I have said for two years, Mayors Garcetti and Bass and every City Council Member have continuously overstepped their bounds."

It's a first-of-a-kind lawsuit that raises some interesting questions. For instance, how will jurors be selected? Will attorneys for the plaintiffs ask if potential jurors got COVID shots and boosters to look for any biases?

"Absolutely not, because you know why? That's a violation of peoples' medical privacy and that's one of the things we saw repeatedly thrown out the window the minute COVID hit and the minute the vaccines were rolled out," said Jennifer Kennedy, the attorney for the plaintiffs. "We're not asking for injunctive relief. This is a lawsuit for damages."

Kennedy says this is a landmark case.

"This is for the harm they did in the past and this is for multiple millions of dollars," she said. 

Because, as she put it, people lost income, pensions, seniority and suffered emotional distress.