patrick.net

The post-pandemic legal cleanup is turning into a bonanza of court rulings and settlements, and almost every story contains the word million. There are simply too many for me to keep up with. Here, for your enjoyment, is a buffet of headlines just from the last week. First, headline from Reuters, two days ago.

Qantas to pay record fine of $58 million for pandemic sackings criticised by judge
By Christine Chen
August 18, 2025

Next, also two days ago, this headline from Insurance Business:

Minnesota appeals court makes COVID- 19 case ruling
The decision is poised to have significant implications for policyholders and insurers

In this case, the appeals court overturned the lower court, and held that a health club chain was entitled to a separate $1M insurance payout for each lockdown order in every jurisdiction with a club location, rather than just one single $1M claim for the pandemic in general. Ouch!

August 13th, a Chicago Tribune headline:

Mercyhealth to pay $1M to settle religious discrimination charges involving COVID-19 vaccine mandate

The million-dollar settlement with employees followed an EEOC investigation that found reasonable cause to believe that Mercyhealth discriminated against its employees based on their religion by denying their religious accommodation requests.

August 5th headline, Miami Herald:

4 South Florida men charged with bilking Medicare in $110 million COVID test-kit case
By Jay Weaver
Updated August 5, 2025

I know. It’s so hard to imagine how someone could have found a scammy way to get rich off “emergency pandemic contracts.” More like this, please.

Finally, today, from Wisconsin local WBAC News:

Landmark trial in alleged wrongful death lawsuit of a COVID-19 patient underway in Outagamie County Court

This tragic case involves Grace Schara, 19, who the family claims was killed by Ascension Hospital, after lethal medication (remdesivir) and a shady do-not-resuscitate order that no one signed or approved. The fact it’s now before a jury means it survived all the hospital chain’s efforts to dismiss it and play games with discovery.

The rising tide of “pandemic consequences” is no longer theoretical — it’s being measured and priced out, in courtrooms, in the millions. Pick your saying: chickens coming home to roost, pandemic offenders hoisted on their own needle-like petards, FAFOs, or my favorite, karma’s a Nancy Pelosi. ...

This wave of pandemic-era litigation will leave a deep imprint on corporate risk management, probably for decades. Companies can’t treat shutdowns, mandates, or mass firings as “acts of God” anymore. They’re seeing that decisions made under the banner of “emergency” will still get litigated later. Expect new policies on workforce reductions, medical mandates, and crisis protocols vetted by lawyers in advance. Emergency decisions won’t be left to “managers under pressure” — lawyers will be in the room, because everyone can now see what happens when courts and juries start attaching million-dollar price tags years later.

The pandemic is not “over.” Its consequences are now beginning to arrive on the courthouse steps, in larger and larger numbers, and in dollar amounts too big to ignore. This is the real long tail of covid: the legal Reckoning. I bet you never thought you’d live to see the day.

A federal appeals court reinstated a religious discrimination lawsuit challenging the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, ruling the case isn’t moot even though the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) rescinded the mandate in 2023.

Three former civilian DOD employees — Amy Arzamendi, Michael Orloff and Brooke Stadler — filed the lawsuit in July 2023, and asked the court to certify it as a class action suit.

The employees said they lived “under constant fear and duress, including the threat of discipline and termination” while waiting for the DOD to process their religious exemption requests, submitted in November 2021.

They also sought exemptions from the DOD’s testing, masking and distancing protocols during the pandemic.

In its 2-1 ruling last week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially reversed a lower court’s April 2024 dismissal of the case, allowing the plaintiffs’ claims related to the vaccine mandate to proceed.

The 5th Circuit ruled the plaintiffs still had grounds to sue for damages even after the vaccine mandate was rescinded, but rejected their claim that the military violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by denying their requests for exemptions from its other pandemic-related policies.

California attorney Greg Glaser, who is not involved with the lawsuit, said the ruling “is a crucial victory for holding federal agencies accountable for their COVID-19 mandate overreach.” He also said the ruling firmly establishes that religious freedom protections are not suspended during a public health emergency.

“The 5th Circuit correctly held that the Biden administration cannot erase the harm inflicted on employees simply by rescinding an unconstitutional policy after the fact.

“By affirming that damages claims are not moot, this decision breathes life into countless similar cases that were wrongly dismissed and provides a clear path to justice for those who suffered religious discrimination.”

... Former President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14043, issued in September 2021, mandated COVID-19 vaccination for federal employees, including military personnel, who had until Nov. 22, 2021, to be “fully vaccinated.”

In their exemption requests to DOD, the plaintiffs cited the use of aborted fetal cells or fetal tissue in the COVID-19 vaccines and argued that their immune systems were created to be naturally robust enough to protect against infection.

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that the DOD slow-walked and stonewalled their requests, ignoring repeated inquiries about their status.

One response from the DOD said the military did not have “a timeline on when and how the review process will be.”