Kathleen Wright-Gottshall, et al. v. New Jersey, et al.

On August 6, 2021, New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Stuart Rabner and Judge Glenn Grant, in their administrative capacities as the heads of the New Jersey judicial branch of government, issued a policy requiring judiciary employees who had not taken a complete series of the Covid-19 shots to begin weekly Covid-19 medical testing as a condition of continued employment. App.48a, App.52a. On August 23, 2021, Governor Murphy issued a similar policy that applied to public and private school and preschool workers who had not provided proof that they had taken a complete series of the Covid-19 shots. App.38a On September 20, 2021, the Head of Human Resources of the Office of Legislative Services (“OLS”) issued a similar policy for legislative branch employees. App.58a All the testing mandates went into effect between August and October 2021 and remained in effect until August

1. Petitioners filed this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Chief Justice Rabner, Judge Glenn Grant, and Governor Murphy in their official and personal capacities. Petitioners challenged the constitutionality of the medical testing under the Fourth Amendment and the substantive due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court dismissed the official capacity claims as moot and held that the individual defendants had qualified immunity for the personal capacity claims. The Third Circuit affirmed. THE QUESTIONS PRESENTED ARE:

2. Whether the mandated weekly medical testing and reporting under these policies violated Petitioners’ Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable