In Sambrano v. United Airlines, Inc., (ND TX, Nov. 8, 2021), a Texas federal district court refused to issue a preliminary injunction to prevent United Airlines from placing on unpaid leave employees who received religious or medical exemptions from United's COVID vaccine mandate. The court said in part:
This Order does not rule on the ultimate merits of this case. Instead, this Order merely rules on Plaintiffs’ request for the extraordinary remedy of a preliminary injunction....
The Court is not insensitive to Plaintiffs’ plight. A loss of income, even temporary, can quickly ripple out to touch nearly every aspect of peoples’ lives, and the lives of their families and dependents. But the Court’s analysis must be guided by the law, not by its sympathy.
Despite the novel facts presented here, the case law is clear that hardships stemming from loss of income are remediable; axiomatically such hardships cannot be called irreparable.
The Hill reports on the decision.
