Anthony Marciano v. Eric Adams, Mayor of the City of New York, et al.

This case invokes law settled over a century ago in the landmark case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 US 11 (1905), involving the police power of state legislatures to require vaccinations. In upholding state law in Jacobson, this Court affirmed that such power was in the hands of the legislature, analogizing the power to enforce vaccination to the power to enforce quarantines. Id., at 25, 29. In January 2021, the legislature of New York enacted Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Legislation, restricting Covid-19 countermeasures to “contact tracing” only, consistent with the health department’s existing authority to regulate and encourage FDA-licensed vaccination. In October 2021, the health department and the Mayor of the City of New York mandated that city employees receive emergency use authorization (EUA) (non-FDA licensed) vaccines as a condition of continued employment. The question presented is whether the Mayor of the City of New York, through his appointed police and health commissioners, acts without legislative authority by mandating municipal employees to be vaccinated with unlicensed EUA drugs, where both state and federal law preempts such mandates without informed consent, or at least without the health department’s obtaining a judicial order of quarantine when informed consent is withheld, under the due process protections that apply to quarantines under state law and New York City’s health code.