Officials assessing health mandates ruling

A Missouri judge ruled Tuesday that health orders implemented by local health departments are unconstitutional.

The ruling by Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green challenges the legality of health departments to mandate mask requirements and other health orders under authorization from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS).

Green said in his ruling the DHSS gave unelected local health officials an unconstitutional level of power. He ordered DHSS to instruct local health authorities throughout the state to refrain from issuing orders under which children can be excluded from school.

Jane Wernsman, director of Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center, said local county health officials are waiting for word from the state health department on what Green's ruling may mean for Cape County.

Green wrote all existing health orders issued unilaterally by local health authorities are "null and void."

There are currently no orders related to COVID-19 in Cape Girardeau County. The County Health Board voted unanimously to rescind its face-covering order in early March.

"As far as for any other public health measures, we'll await interpretation," Wernsman said.

The judge's ruling comes a month after Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt along with nine other state attorneys filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration's federal vaccine mandate, calling it a "power grab."

"We are aware of the Court's ruling and are prepared to enforce compliance with the Court's order across the state," a spokesman for Schmitt said in a statement to the Southeast Missourian on Tuesday.

Green's ruling was the final judgment on a lawsuit filed in 2020 by a group St. Louis-area restaurateurs and business owners in an effort to stay open during the pandemic.

The plaintiffs asserted health agency directors throughout Missouri used power granted to them from DHSS regulations to "exercise unbridled and unfettered personal authority to, in effect, legislate," Green wrote.

"Missouri's local health authorities have grown accustomed to issuing edicts and coercing compliance," Green wrote. "It is far past time for this unconstitutional conduct to stop."