NEW ORLEANS (Legal Newsline) – A lawsuit alleging a 16-year-old was given the COVID-19 vaccine without the permission of his mother is headed back to state court after a brief stint in federal.
New Orleans federal judge Jay Zainey on Aug. 11 remanded the case filed by Jennifer Ravain back to Jefferson Parish District Court, where she first filed it. The defendants – Ochsner Medical Center Kenner, Jefferson Parish School Board and East Jefferson High School – had removed the case to federal court in December.
The defendants said her case should have been defeated by the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, which grants immunity to those who administer and sponsor vaccine programs. But Zainey ruled they couldn’t show the PREP Act “completely” preempted her claims.
“A liberal reading of Plaintiff’s petition reveals state-law claims of negligence and intentional torts,” the decision says, noting recent Fifth Circuit guidance that the PREP Act does not completely preempt state-law negligence claims.
“Although the Fifth Circuit has acknowledged that the PREP Act creates a cause of action for willful misconduct, it has reserved the question of whether that cause of action satisfies the requisites for complete preemption.
“Considering the narrow application of complete preemption, we are not convinced that the PREP Act is one of those rare statutes where a federal statutory scheme is so comprehensive that it entirely supplants state-law intentional tort claims.”
According to the lawsuit, on Oct. 20, 2021, an announcement came over the public address at East Jefferson High School stating that students were free to go to the Ochsner mobile vaccine unit if they were interested in getting the COVID-19 vaccination.
Ravain’s son asked the nurses when he would be able to schedule getting the shot, as he wanted to talk to his mother first, and they informed that it would be done right then, the suit says.
The minor proceeded to get the vaccination. Ravain claims that Defendants did not adhere to the law regarding obtaining consent from a parent of a minor before administrating shots.