[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6811 Introduced in House (IH)]
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117th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 6811
To permit civil actions against the United States or any State or local
government entity for COVID-19 vaccination mandates.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 22, 2022
Mrs. Harshbarger (for herself, Mr. Banks, Mr. Posey, Mr. LaMalfa, Mr.
Weber of Texas, Mr. Babin, Mr. Norman, and Ms. Herrell) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To permit civil actions against the United States or any State or local
government entity for COVID-19 vaccination mandates.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Protecting Americans' Medical Rights
Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) Government-imposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates that
threaten Americans' jobs and livelihoods are authoritarian,
unnecessary, overreaching, irrational, and needlessly divisive,
and lack a purported scientific basis for public health needs.
(2) The policy of the United States is to recognize,
defend, and protect the inherent rights of the individual,
including the right of liberty, the right to be secure in one's
person, the right of the individual to be informed about any
medical procedures, treatment, or vaccination, and the right of
the individual to provide or withhold consent to such
procedures, treatment, or vaccination.
(3) Data from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) confirm that while COVID-19 vaccination can
lessen the severity of illness for individuals in certain
higher risk categories, it DOES NOT preclude Americans from
contracting, spreading, or being hospitalized by the COVID-19
virus.
(4) As a medical matter, the COVID-19 vaccine may not be
appropriate for everyone. Because of potential risks that
COVID-19 vaccines may pose to certain people, it is important
that every patient be able to consult his or her doctor or
other medical health care provider to determine whether one of
the COVID-19 vaccines is safe and appropriate.
(5) A significant body of peer-reviewed scientific studies
concludes that COVID-19 vaccines are among a wide range of
clinical public health tools available and accessible to
Americans for mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 virus.
(6) Other scientifically confirmed clinical safeguard tools
for mitigating and protecting against COVID-19 include--
(A) the durable and lasting protection of natural
immunity from previous COVID-19 infection;
(B) therapeutics, including oral antiviral
medications;
(C) periodic testing;
(D) air filtration or purification systems;
(E) choosing to wear masks, shields, and other
personal protective equipment (PPE);
(F) remote work settings; and
(G) social distancing.
(7) Wise and constitutionally permissible government
policies aimed at mitigating adverse public health effects from
COVID-19 must be based on clear and consistent scientific
evidence, while respecting the fundamental individual liberties
and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. Such policies must
also seek the path or combinations of paths that least infringe
on individual liberties to achieve public health gains.
(8) Due in large part to the vacillating, arbitrary,
inconsistent, and at times nontransparent and scientifically
tenuous COVID-19 guidances issued by the CDC and other
government agencies, Americans may have legitimate questions,
concerns, and confusion about what best serves their medical
needs with respect to the COVID-19 virus.
(9) Americans holding such legitimate questions and
concerns--or being opposed to COVID-19 vaccine mandates--DOES
NOT equate to their being ``antivaccine'' or ``antiscience''.
It is altogether and entirely consistent for Americans to be
``provaccine'' for what makes sense for their and their
family's personal health needs in consultation with their
board-certified physician or other health care provider, and
also be ``antivaccine mandate''.
(10) To date, there is no scientific data to suggest
employment settings pose any increased or special risk for
COVID-19 transmission among individuals, as compared to home,
social, or other gatherings.
(11) The protection of individual rights to make one's own
medical decisions in consultation with one's health care
provider--without fear of coercion, forced vaccination, loss of
civil liberties, or risk of adverse employment action--is
especially needed at a time when it is critical for the Nation
to increase trust in public health officials. Protection of
these individual rights is also vital for encouraging, where
and when medically appropriate, vaccination or other scientific
measures for keeping Americans safe and healthy.
(12) Under current law, Americans who sustain adverse
health effects or injuries resulting from COVID-19 vaccination
generally have minimal and restricted compensation recourses.
They are generally confined to the notoriously stingy
Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).
(13) The CICP is managed through an administrative process,
where there is no court, judge, or right to appeal. Decisions
about compensation are made in a figurative black hole by a
nameless administrator. Compensation for lost wages and death
benefits are arbitrarily capped, there is no opportunity for
collecting damages for pain and suffering, and there is only a
one-year statutory limit for making a claim. In addition, there
is no compensation for attorney fees, which makes it extremely
difficult for vaccine-injured Americans to find counsel willing
to represent them.
(14) Since the advent of the COVID-19 vaccines and as of
February 1, 2022, there have been NO compensation awards issued
by the CICP for COVID-19 vaccine injury claims.
(15) The United States constitutional structure demands
measures of accountability for government actions that infringe
individual liberties and could cause harm. If Congress or the
courts fail to nullify, overturn, or invalidate unnecessary,
authoritarian, and overreaching COVID-19 vaccine mandates that
threaten the loss of employment for noncompliance, Americans
oppressed by such mandates and coerced into vaccination should
be able to hold governments accountable. They should have full
and unfettered access to legal recourses for any adverse health
effects or injuries sustained from such COVID-19 vaccine
mandates. This should include the right to bring civil actions
for declaratory or injunctive relief, or monetary compensatory
damages, including economic and noneconomic damages, against
Federal, State, and local government entities that impose such
mandates.
(16) It is well-established that Congress' power under
article I, section 8, clause 1 of the Constitution, also known
as the Spending Clause, includes the power to require the
States to abide by certain conditions in exchange for receiving
Federal financial assistance. The Supreme Court has explained
that one such lawful condition may be States voluntarily
waiving their sovereign immunity from suit (under the Eleventh
Amendment to the Constitution or otherwise). South Dakota v.
Dole (483 U.S. 203 (1987)); College Savings Bank v. Florida
Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board (527 U.S. 666
(1999)).
(17) Such a conditional waiver does not coerce a State. The
Supreme Court has explicitly recognized that when Congress
expresses a funding condition ``unambiguously'', a State's
acceptance of Federal funds constitutes a knowing agreement to
a congressionally imposed condition on the funds. Pennhurst
State School & Hospital v. Halderman (451 U.S. 1, 17 (1981)).
Accordingly, while Congress may not compel States to waive
their sovereign immunity, a voluntary State waiver is wholly
permissible. Alden v. Maine (527 U.S. 706 (1999)).
(18) This Act protects Americans' constitutional medical
rights by ensuring that individuals subject to a scientifically
tenuous ``Hobson's Choice'' of employment-threatening COVID-19
vaccine mandate, where they feel forced into vaccination
against their will, are able to seek equitable and appropriate
legal remedies for any COVID-19 vaccine injuries, remedies that
are extremely limited or disallowed under current law.
(19) This Act further protects Americans' constitutional
medical rights by holding Federal, State, and local governments
accountable for unnecessary, irrational, overreaching, and
liberty-infringing COVID-19 vaccine mandates, when many other
scientifically proven, and less liberty-intrusive, tools exist
for mitigating the effects of and protecting against COVID-19.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Aggrieved individual.--The term ``aggrieved
individual'' includes--
(A) an individual who received or is required to
receive a COVID-19 vaccine as a result of Executive
Order 14042 or 14043 to prevent the termination, or any
other adverse consequence, of the employment of the
individual with a Federal agency, or as a condition of
new employment;
(B) an individual who received a COVID-19 vaccine
as a result of a Federal agency requirement (or is
required to do so by the individual's employer acting
pursuant to a Federal agency requirement) as a
condition of new or continued employment, including a
COVID-19 vaccine requirement resulting from--
(i) the rule titled ``COVID-19 Vaccination
and Testing; Emergency Temporary Standard''
published on November 5, 2021 (86 Fed. Reg.
61402 et seq.); or
(ii) the rule titled ``Medicare and
Medicaid Programs; Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care
Staff Vaccination'' published November 5, 2021
(86 Fed. Reg. 61555 et seq.); and
(C) an individual who received or is required to
receive a COVID-19 vaccine as a result of a State or
local governmental requirement, or by their employer
that is acting pursuant to a State or local
governmental requirement, as a condition of new or
continued employment.
(2) COVID-19 vaccine.--The term ``COVID-19 vaccine'' means
a vaccine that is intended to prevent or mitigate coronavirus
disease 2019, including any booster to such a vaccine.
(3) Federal agency.--The term ``Federal agency'' means any
department, agency, office, or other entity in the executive
branch of the Federal Government.
(4) Injuries.--The term ``injuries'' includes any adverse
health effects, reactions, and other adverse health
consequences, including incapacity or wrongful death, resulting
from COVID-19 vaccination.
SEC. 4. CIVIL ACTIONS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OR ANY STATE OR LOCAL
GOVERNMENT ENTITY FOR COVID-19 VACCINATION MANDATES.
(a) Action Authorized.--In lieu of seeking compensation under
sections 319F-3 and 319F-4 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C.
247d-6d, 247d-6e), any aggrieved individual, or in the case of a
deceased aggrieved individual his or her survivors, may commence an
action against the United States, or against any State or local
governmental entity, whichever imposed the applicable requirements, in
an appropriate district court of the United States, seeking declaratory
or injunctive relief and compensatory damages, including economic and
noneconomic damages, for injuries sustained by the aggrieved individual
as a result of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.
(b) Liability.--The United States and any State or local
governmental entity, whichever imposed the applicable requirements,
shall be liable to any aggrieved individual, or in the case of a
deceased aggrieved individual his or her survivors, for injuries
sustained by the aggrieved individual as a result of receiving a COVID-
19 vaccine.
(c) Attorney's Fees.--The court may award attorney's fees to an
aggrieved individual who prevails in an action under this section (or
to his or her survivors who so prevail if applicable).
SEC. 5. VOLUNTARY WAIVER OF STATE AND LOCAL SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY AS
CONDITION OF RECEIVING ANY FEDERAL FUNDING RELATED TO
COVID-19.
The receipt or use, on or after the date of enactment of this Act,
of any Federal funding related to COVID-19 by a State or political
subdivision of a State (including any municipal or county government)
is deemed to constitute a clear and unequivocal expression of, and
agreement to, waiving sovereign immunity under the 11th Amendment to
the Constitution or otherwise, to a civil action for declaratory or
injunctive relief, compensatory damages, and attorney's fees under
section 4.
SEC. 6. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.
Nothing in this Act may be construed to permit or otherwise
authorize a COVID-19 vaccination mandate under Federal law (including
any regulation).
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