Posted on 09/16/2021 4:00:38 PM PDT by American Number 181269513
Attorneys for the Florida Department of Health, school boards and parties such as the NAACP battled Thursday about whether Surgeon General Scott Rivkees should give a deposition in a legal fight over the state’s efforts to prevent school mask mandates.
Administrative Law Judge Brian Newman held a nearly hour-long hearing as the department seeks a protective order to block Rivkees from having to testify in challenges to an Aug. 6 rule issued by the health agency. The rule required that parents be able to “opt out” their children from any school mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.
School boards in Broward, Alachua, Orange, Miami-Dade and Leon counties and other parties, including the Florida State Conference of the NAACP, have challenged the rule. Their attorneys want to question Rivkees, who, as surgeon general, heads the Department of Health and signed the rule.
At least in part, they contend that the effort to prevent mask requirements in schools conflicts with past statements by Rivkees about masks helping curb the spread of COVID-19.
“It matters what the surgeon general was thinking in this case,” David Ashburn, an attorney for the school boards in Broward, Alachua and Orange counties. But Ed Lombard, an attorney for the Department of Health, focused on a protection — known in the legal world as the “apex doctrine” — that generally shields high-ranking government officials from having to give depositions if information can be obtained from other sources.
“They (attorneys for the challengers) have means to ascertain the information they want,” Lombard said. “It’s not the surgeon general they need to start with.”
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Censorship destroys trust.
They should make a rule that all masks must be black. That way the NAACLP would be arguing that everyone must wear blackface.
But it didn’t bother them when Fauci did the same thing.
In regard to masks, HCQ and Ivermectin, Big Pharma is using our own drug mandate laws against the American people and it is costing thousands of lives.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.