LAS VEGAS (Legal Newsline) – Employers dealing with layoffs, a barber forced to stop working and a coronavirus patient who wants to undergo a controversial treatment are suing Nevada officials over the state’s handling of the pandemic.
The plaintiffs filed their proposed class action May 7 in Las Vegas federal court against various Nevada departments and officials, like Gov. Steve Sisolak. Plaintiffs include businesses that have been forced to lay off all employees, a doctor, a barber and a coronavirus patient who wants to take hydroxychloroquine.
“This class action challenges the constitutionality of Defendants’ orders and emergency directives to curb Plaintiffs’ civil rights and liberties by ordering draconian ‘shelter-in-place’ orders, effectively shuttering so-called ‘non-essential businesses’ all across the State of Nevada, and restricting the practice of medicine by Nevada physicians and the ability of patients to receive treatment for COVID-19,” the lawsuit says.
“If allowed to stand, Defendants’ orders and emergency directives will not only continue to violate Plaintiffs’ rights under both the Nevada and U.S. Constitutions, but Defendants will continue to inflict massive and widespread damage to Plaintiffs…”
The plaintiffs are:
-Orion Star Events, an entertainment business that has laid off all employees during the shutdown. It says it could have operated within recommended social distancing guidelines;
-Capelli Milano, a hair salon that has similarly laid off all workers;
-Darreleen Goodman, a barber who has been forced out of work;
-Bruce Fong, an osteopathic physician who wants to treat patients with hydroxychloroquine; and
-Keith Matthews, a coronavirus patient who wants to undergo that treatment.
Forbidding treatment with that drug, used to fight malaria, was “arbitrary and capricious” on the part of the defendants, including Gov. Stephen Sisolak, the lawsuit says.
U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada case number 2:20-cv-00827