On Nov. 23, 2021, attorneys for a Louisiana business owner and Texas workers filed a Motion to Transfer the legal challenge to stop the Biden Administration’s illegal vaccine mandate back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Louisiana business owner, Brandon Trosclair and a group of workers CaptiveAire Systems employees in Texas are represented in BST Holdings, LLC v. OSHA by the national law firm Liberty Justice Center and the Louisiana-based Pelican Institute for Public Policy. Their petition led to a nationwide stay issued by the Fifth Circuit barring any efforts to implement or enforce the OSHA vaccine mandate remains in place.

Last week, legal challenges filed across the country against the mandate for private businesses and employees were consolidated in the Sixth Circuit by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. The purpose of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation is to create judicial economy and ensure cases are heard efficiently. However, efficiency is not an issue in this situation because the Fifth Circuit acted quickly and the panel is already well-versed on the arguments of both the plaintiffs and the government.

This is the most important legal issue facing our country in a decade. There is a lot of procedural wrangling that will take place over the next couple of weeks. It is in the best interest of our clients, efficiency, and all Americans for the newly consolidated case to be heard in the Fifth Circuit.

Attorneys from Liberty Justice Center and the Pelican Institute were joined by other attorneys representing petitioners in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, including attorneys from the Texas Public Policy Foundation and America First Legal Foundation.

The petitioners wrote in their Motion to Transfer:

“This Court should grant Petitioners’ Motion to Transfer the consolidated petitions for review to the Fifth Circuit because that choice of venue would best serve the convenience of the parties and is in the interests of justice. Whether measured by the number of petitions or number of petitioners, the plurality of parties in this consolidated case reside in the Fifth Circuit, as do many of their counsels of record. Their interests can be best represented in their chosen forum, which longstanding precedent holds is entitled to substantial weight. Moreover, the Fifth Circuit has already invested substantial time, ordered and received briefing, and issued a detailed and substantive published decision on the important issue of this case. It therefore would serve judicial economy and the interests of justice for the Fifth Circuit to continue adjudicating these petitions.”

Motion to Transfer, Nov. 23, 2021