Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, SUPREME COURT DOCKET—Court declines to hear a handful of COVID vaccine-related employment cases, (Nov 12, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

Employers involved in the suits include Johns Hopkins University, Disney, and United Airlines.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its denial of certiorari in several cases, including three involving employees who alleged that their terminations or other adverse treatments for failure to obtain a COVID-19 vaccine violated one or more laws.

Tarquino v. Johns Hopkins Univ. Applied Physics Lab, Docket No. 25-353, involved a systems engineer for Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab whose request for a medical accommodation to a vaccination requirement instituted by her employer, a federal contractor, was denied. Although she disclosed her disability—Lyme-induced immune dysregulation—when she requested the exemption, she never explained how that limited her in a way that required an accommodation. The employer repeatedly requested access to her medical records and the ability to speak to her doctors because Lyme disease was not a medical contraindication for the vaccine. She refused and her accommodation request was denied. She was fired after refusing to get vaccinated. She sued and a district court granted summary judgment in favor of the employer. She appealed and the Fourth Circuit affirmed in Tarquinio v. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, No. 24-1432 (4th Cir. June 25, 2025).

Anderson v. United Airlines, Inc., Docket No. 25-440, involved a group of United Airlines employees, including pilots, flight attendants, ramp service workers, mechanics, technicians, and customer service representatives who challenged the company’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate and masking requirement issued in 2021. Affirming the district court’s dismissal of their state and federal claims, the Seventh Circuit ruled the employees waived some of their claims and failed to exhaust administrative remedies on others (Anderson v. United Airlines, Inc., No. 24-1626 (7th Cir. Jun. 9, 2025)). In their petition to the High Court, they asked it to weigh in on Section 564 of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act and, specifically, whether there is a violation of Section 564’s guarantee of a right to refuse when an employer imposes adverse employment consequences on employees who refuse to accept a vaccine that has been authorized but not approved by the FDA.

Finally, Pajer v. Disney Parks, Inc., Docket No. 25-388, involved a so-called “vaccinate-or-terminate” COVID-19 policy instituted by Disney, and arguments by employees that their claims under the ADA were arbitrarily and unconstitutionally barred by the Eleventh Circuit.

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