No. 24-1283

ALICIA LOWE; DEBRA CHALMERS; JENNIFER BARBALIAS; GARTH BERENYI; NICOLE GIROUX; ADAM JONES; NATALIE SALAVARRIA,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

v.

SARA GAGNÉ-HOLMES, in her official capacity as Acting Commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services; DR. PUTHIERY VA, Director for the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention,

Defendants, Appellees,

JANET T. MILLS, in her official capacity as Governor of the State of Maine; NANCY BEARDSLEY, in her official capacity as Acting Director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention; MAINEHEALTH; GENESIS HEALTHCARE OF MAINE, LLC; GENESIS HEALTHCARE LLC; MAINEGENERAL HEALTH; NORTHERN LIGHT EASTERN MAINE MEDICAL CENTER,

Defendants.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE

[Hon. John D. Levy, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Barron, Chief Judge, Lynch and Howard, Circuit Judges.

Daniel J. Schmid, with whom Mathew D. Staver, Horatio G. Mihet, and Liberty Counsel were on brief, for appellants. Kimberly L. Patwardhan, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Maine Attorney General, with whom Aaron M. Frey, Attorney General, and Thomas A. Knowlton, Deputy Attorney General, Chief, Litigation Division, Office of the Maine Attorney General, were on brief, for appellees.

January 17, 2025 LYNCH, Circuit Judge. This appeal challenges the district court's February 23, 2024 dismissal on mootness grounds of appellants' constitutional challenge to Maine's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for certain healthcare workers, which was originally promulgated by emergency rule on August 12, 2021, no longer enforced as of July 12, 2023, and repealed by amendment of the regulation, effective on September 5, 2023. See 10-144-264 Me. Code R. § 2 (amended Sept. 5, 2023) (requiring designated healthcare facilities to "require for all employees who do not exclusively work remotely a Certificate of Immunization, or Proof of Immunity" against COVID-19). The appellants are Maine healthcare workers who do not exclusively work remotely and who were terminated from their employment at covered healthcare facilities after they refused to comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate based on their religious beliefs.

In 2021, the appellants filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Maine against their former employers and various Maine government officials, asserting that the failure of the mandate to provide for religious exemptions violated, inter alia, the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. On the same day, they filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, which were denied. The appellants appealed the denial of

- 3 - preliminary injunctive relief.1 On October 19, 2021, this court affirmed the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction, Does 1-6 v. Mills, 16 F.4th 20, 37 (1st Cir. 2021), and the Supreme Court denied the appellants' subsequent application for emergency injunctive relief, Does 1-3 v. Mills, 142 S. Ct. 17, 17 (2021).

On February 14, 2022, the defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim, which was granted on August 18, 2022. In May 2023, this court affirmed in part and reversed in part, reversing the dismissal of the First Amendment Free Exercise and Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause claims for declaratory and injunctive relief