By Alix Mayer, Free Now Foundation Chair, and Richard B. Fox, J.D., M.D., Free Now Foundation Attorney
As many FNF followers know, our due process case — which was filed to end vaccine mandates — relies heavily on arguments to disqualify a 120-year old smallpox case, Jacobson v. Massachusetts. Judges have repeatedly used Jacobson to justify mandates, even though the medical milieu and legal landscape regarding vaccination in the early 1900s is entirely different today.
We got news Friday about a decision in favor of Los Angeles Unified School District involving Jacobson in California’s 9th circuit court, a court in which our due process case may appear in the future. While at first the decision doesn’t seem like good news for our case, the arguments in our due process case are entirely different from this case, and our case provides a very hopeful way forward, although it may be a long road.
The Ninth Circuit Just Upheld Vaccine Mandates With Hardly Any Limits
The particulars are that, on July 31, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that legislatures and public health authorities can mandate vaccines under nearly all circumstances, including the COVID shots. The decision was all the more important because it came from an eleven-judge panel, not just the usual three-judge panel.
The case is Health Freedom Defense Fund v. Los Angeles Unified School District, case number 22-55908 in the Ninth Circuit. In that case the LA Unified School District required all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Several employees and two non-profit health freedom groups filed suit to block the school district’s COVID requirements.
The U.S. District Court for Los Angeles held that the school district’s COVID policy was rational and that nothing more was required under the Supreme Court’s 1905 decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts in which the Supreme Court rules that Massachusetts could require all adults to be vaccinated against smallpox.
The plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit where a three-judge panel sided with the plaintiff school district employees. The panel held that the Jacobson decision did not apply to the COVID shots because: (1) the Jacobson smallpox mandate was based on the then understanding that smallpox vaccination would prevent the spread of smallpox within the community and (2) the COVID shots have not been shown to prevent spread of COVID among the public but merely to make the infection less severe in individual cases.
But that was not the end of the case. LA Unified appealed the three-judge panel decision to the full Ninth Circuit (all the judges for the Ninth Circuit), which agreed to hear it. An eleven-judge panel was appointed and, on July 31, issued its decision upholding the school district. It did so after holding that Jacobson authorizes vaccine mandates no matter whether the vaccine prevents the spread of infection or not; that even if it only makes the infection less severe in the individual case, it can still be mandated.
Judges Collins and Lee dissented, arguing that the majority’s decision would allow the government to mandate just about any medical treatment for just about anyone.
Interestingly, the eleven judges on the panel were almost equally divided between judges appointed by Democrat presidents and those appointed by Republican presidents, five of the former and six of the latter, with the majority decision written by a Trump appointee.
Free Now’s Due Process Lawsuit Argues Serious & Permanent Injury, a First for Children’s Vaccine Freedom Lawsuits
Free Now Foundation currently has a lawsuit against California’s mandates for childhood immunizations as a requirement for school attendance pending in the U.S. District Court in Sacramento. That lawsuit argues that the Jacobson decision is not authority for California’s childhood immunizations because: (1) those immunizations are known to cause serious permanent injury and death because Congress made that determination when it passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in 1986 and (2) Jacobson is not authority for mandating harmful vaccines.
Even Prisoners Have the Right Not to be Injected with Psychoactive Drugs, Even Though It Could Help Keep Order in Prison
Specifically, in a 1990 Supreme Court decision, Washington v. Harper, the Supreme Court held that, “The forcible injection of medication into a nonconsenting person’s body represents a substantial interference with that person’s liberty,” where the issue was whether prison authorities could force mentally disturbed prisoners to be injected with psychoactive drugs, not only for their own benefit, but also to keep order in the prisons. The Supreme Court took note of the fact that those drugs could cause permanent harm, and even death in some cases, and allowed those forced treatments to go forward only under limited circumstances where the benefits outweighed the harms as determined on a case-by-case basis.
Free Now Foundation’s lawsuit argues that California’s mandated immunizations are likely to cause of many, if not most, cases of childhood autism, now one in every twenty California children, and the likely cause of most sudden infant death cases, now about one every day in California. The lawsuit argues that Jacobson does not give California the power to require innocent children to submit to often harmful, and too often lethal, injections.
Free Now Foundation’s lawsuit also argues that mandated immunizations infringe upon parents’ rights to decide on their children’s medical treatments, especially if there is potential harm from those treatments.
To get the latest on the Due Process case, and get a taste of Dr. Fox’s compelling legal arguments, please read our Oppositions to the Motion to Dismiss and Defendants Supplemental Response:
July 30, 2025 Opposition to the Motion to Dismiss,
August 8, 2025 – ECF #59 Supplemental Opposition To Motion To Dismiss 8 22 2025
ECF #60 Defendants Supplemental Response 8-22-2025
Our in person hearing on August 21 was cancelled, but please stay tuned as we update you.
This case is certain to go up to the Ninth Circuit on appeal and could eventually be heard by the Supreme Court to decide the power of the government to mandate vaccines and other medical treatments that are harmful and even lethal, especially to children.
The federal court in Sacramento will hold a hearing on August 21 to decide whether to allow California to continue to require harmful immunizations or will order it stopped. Come watch Dr. Fox in eloquent action!
Date: August 21, 2025
Time: 1:30 p.m.
Courtroom: 7
Judge: Hon. Daniel J. Calabretta
Case: 2:24-cv-03523-DJC-SCR
In 1996, Ms. Mayer was running a worldwide research group for Apple Inc., when she got 6 vaccines for a vacation and became disabled, brain damaged and lost her career. Now substantially recovered, she is Board Chair & President of Free Now Foundation, the leading medical freedom law non-profit in California.
Ms. Mayer is an in-demand speaker, and her lively presentations on 1/ The Measles Manipulation of RFK Jr., 2/ REAL ID: Weaponized Architecture, 3/ ABV: Anything But Vaccines and 4/ The Legal Howdunit of COVID have earned her recognition and accolades. "I know women in VP positions who do not hold a candle to this woman's sunlight," stated a commenter on a recent interview with Mike Adams, "She gives me hope that humanity still lives."
Ms. Mayer formerly served on the Children's Health Defense (CHD) board, co-founded & served as Chairman of CHD’s most successful Chapter in California, helping raise in excess of $5M, and served on RFK Jr’s Presidential campaign finance committee, raising hundreds of thousands for the campaign.
In 2022, she won the Golden Bear Award and a presentation she gave to Dr. Mercola was named a "Best of" interview. Her favorite award is her "Freedominator" Rock given by Marin Freedom Rising in 2023. Ms. Mayer grew up in the Oscar Mayer family, and has degrees from Duke (BA) and Northwestern (MBA.)
I really, really, really hope you win! Thank you so much for doing all you can!!!
Love the arguments about VICA 1986 being proof of harm, but judges are slippery and a very slippery judge could slip in an opinion they see that as only a partial proof of harm despite it being in the name of the law.
Fight on!
Thank you for your tenuous fight for our youth & we adults!
Blessings upon you & your family plus all those “fighters” for TRUTH!!!
This is an outstanding article that merits sharing with all of everyone’s contacts.
As well noted, “Let’s Flood the Courtroom for the In-Person hearing in Sacramento on August 21st. 1:30 PM, Eastern Court of California, Federal Court Building, Courtroom 7, 501 I Street, #4200. Hon. Daniel Calabratta presiding.
Do you plan to appeal the (horribly) adverse ruling in Health Freedom Defense Fund v. Los Angeles Unified School District to the US Supreme Court?
I have thought of an argument against applying Jacobson to COVID-19 vaccination mandates that I have never seen anyone use, which is that in Jacobson, all he had to do was pay a one-time five-dollar fine, and then he would not have to comply with the mandate. Of course five dollars was worth a lot more back then, but still the point is many people would rather pay $500 or $1000 one time, than take these often-toxic jabs.
Concerns about the poor testing and toxicity of the jabs also do not seem to have been taken into account. The arguments against the mandate seem rather weak, based entirely on the question of effectiveness rather than safety. Even if the vaccine had entirely prevented spread and severe illness from the virus itself, but the vaccine has (let’s say) a 1% chance of killing you within five years and a 5% chance of causing major health difficulties even if it doesn’t kill you, there should be no justification for government or employers to require the use of such a vaccine. Can you explain why these seemingly stronger arguments were not made?
Hi Gregg! That LAUSD case was well crafted around efficacy and at first it worked. I’m sure Health Freedom Defense Fund will appeal it. That first ruling that COVID shots don’t prevent transmission is an excellent point. The case was well-argued.
Our due process case against CA Dept of Health Director Erica Pan attacks at different angles, including harms/lack of safety and violations of due process. Read the linked response (in the article) to the motion to dismiss for more detail. It’s a great read.
Agree with you about the $5 fine. Dr. Fox makes the argument that the consequence for not getting vaccinated in California is the loss of a guaranteed public education. That is far from equivalent of a $5 fine in today’s dollars. I believe Judge Gorsuch did refer to the $5 fine in a dissenting opinion.
Thanks for writing and for sharing your thoughts. We are with you!
I compiled a list of books on covid and children’s vaccine harm. I also compiled multiple annotated and referenced articles most based on professional and often govt/pharma own buried findings. I’d like to send that info to the judges that may hear the case next. How do I find their snail mail addresses.? I think it would be helpful for anyone to send a researched report on harm from covid and/or children’s vaccines. If the judges received many reports from citizens–or organizations–it may help to open their eyes a crack.