School that gave children COVID-19 vaccine against parents' wishes immune from lawsuits

A school that injected a minor with a COVID-19 vaccine despite the boy’s parents telling school officials they did not want him to receive a COVID-19 vaccine is immune under federal law, the Vermont Supreme Court has ruled.

The federal Public Preparedness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) protects state and school officials named as defendants in a lawsuit filed by the minor’s parents, the justices said in a July 26 ruling.

“We conclude that when the federal PREP Act immunizes a defendant, the PREP Act precludes all state claims against the defendant as a matter of law,” Judge Karen Carroll said.

The PREP Act, signed into law in 2005, grants immunity to administrators of covered vaccines except in cases involving willful misconduct. COVID-19 vaccines are covered by a 2020 declaration, extended several times since, by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Dario and Shujen Politella sued officials after their son was injected with a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shot in 2021 at the Academy School in the Windham Southeast School District. Before the school hosted a vaccine clinic, district and state officials confirmed that students needed parental consent to receive a vaccine, and the boy’s parents said they did not consent. Days before he held the clinic, Mr. Politella stressed to the school’s assistant principal that the parents did not want the boy to get a shot.

The boy was removed from class on the day of the clinic and tagged as another child who had already been vaccinated. The boy told workers that his father told him not to give him a vaccine, but they distracted him with a stuffed animal and gave him a shot, according to court documents.

Lawyers for the parents, however, argued that officials failed to show that the PREP Act covered their actions and that the case should be tried in state court under state law. In a brief to the Vermont judges, they pointed to other cases where that has happened.
The judges said that each defendant, including the school nurse, is covered by the PREP Act and that the allegations against them are related to the administration of the vaccine, making all defendants immune.

While there have been rulings in other cases that the PREP Act only preempts claims against covered individuals for intentional misconduct, “none of those cases support the proposition that plaintiffs can proceed in state court against defendants who are completely immune from liability under the Act,” Justice Carroll said.

She later wrote that “other state courts faced with similar facts have concluded that state-law claims against immunized defendants cannot proceed in state court in light of the PREP Act’s immunity and preemption provisions, including claims based on failure to secure parental consent.”

An attorney representing Mr. and Mrs. Politella did not respond to a request for comment.

“We are very pleased with the court’s decision affirming the dismissal of the case,” Pietro Lynn, who represents many of the defendants, told The Epoch Times by email. “We are pleased to be able to put this case behind us.”