Cowboy State Daily
Wyoming Mask Mandate Lawsuit Dismissed
A federal judge this week dismissed a lawsuit against the state of Wyoming and several school districts over mandates issued during the coronavirus pandemic.
A federal judge this week dismissed a lawsuit against the state of Wyoming and several school districts over mandates issued during the coronavirus pandemic.
Published
3 years agoon
By
News Release
This story first appeared on Cowboy State Daily
By Ellen Fike, Cowboy State Daily
A federal judge this week dismissed a lawsuit against the state of Wyoming and several school districts over mandates issued during the coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Freudenthal said in her order to dismiss the lawsuit that the plaintiffs in the case, including the parents of several Wyoming students, failed to respond in time to seven motions filed by defendants in the case seeking to dismiss the lawsuit.
“This is the second time that plaintiffs have failed to timely respond to several motions to dismiss, despite this court’s orders reminding them of the briefing deadlines…and warning that the court would consider future motions deemed confessed for lack of timely response, their culpability would seem high,” Freudenthal wrote in her ruling.
The lawsuit at one point included as plaintiffs Grace Smith, the teenager arrested at Laramie High School last fall for trespassing after refusing to wear a mask, and her father. But they were no longer involved with the lawsuit as of January.
The initial lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Nov. 2 alleged that rules adopted by some school districts requiring students to wear masks while in class, observe social distancing and to quarantine when exposed to coronavirus have been improperly adopted.
The lawsuit asked the court to find there was never an imminent threat to Wyoming’s residents from coronavirus, that Gov. Mark Gordon’s initial emergency declaration was unconstitutional, that school districts have no authority to impose such mandates and asks that all such orders should be lifted immediately.
The lawsuit was amended in January, after a December filing by Freudenthal called the original complaint filed on behalf of Grace Smith and others a “confused jumble of factual assertions…extensive citations to articles and other materials of nonparties…and legal arguments.”
Several plaintiffs and defendants have come and gone from the lawsuit in recent months.
Albany County School District No. 1, Sheridan County School District No. 2, Laramie County School District No. 1, Uinta County School District No. 6, Sweetwater County School District No. 2, Goshen County School District No. 1, the Sheridan Police Department, Wyoming Public Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist and Wyoming Department of Health interim Director Stefan Johansson were all dismissed from the lawsuit between December and January.
Gov. Mark Gordon, who was once involved in the lawsuit, announced Monday that he has begun the process to end Wyoming’s COVID-19 public health emergency declaration, two years after it was put in place.
The declaration will end March 14, two years after COVID was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.
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J. Jay Jones
March 3, 2022 at 4:37 pm
Great thing that a lot of folks took the precautionary measures and followed the science here in Wyoming by wearing masks in public places and being careful. Especially in the early stages of the pandemic before vaccines became available. That was actually the difference, as the virus never really got out of hand and spread like wild fire. The people here in Wyoming were responsible enough to approach the virus using common sense by protecting one another by doing the right things. And this, of course was the reason why it never really got out of hand in this state. Too bad that a some folks never really got that, and viewed wearing masks as only a burden upon themselves, taking into consideration only the aspects derived around their own feelings of being inconvenienced by putting a piece of cloth over their faces. Too bad certain people never thought much about their friends and neighbors who might have had underlining health conditions, and instead only chose to make a political issue out of a health issue that confronts every human being in the world the exact same way, and has absolutely nothing to do with politics. We can only thank God that there were far more people that followed the basics of science, and can only imagine how bad it could have been here in this state had everyone gone around refusing to wear masks like their fellow citizens who were wearing masks to protect them. No imminent threat? Of course not. Because, for the most part, the people of Wyoming did the right things. It was the actions of the responsible people that determined a better outcome, not the irresponsible ones who never really helped the situation at all.