A Pennsylvania order mandating masks inside K-12 schools and child care facilities was thrown out by a state court on Wednesday.
The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled the mandate did not comply with the state’s laws about reviewing and approving regulations and was adopted without an existing disaster emergency declared by the governor. The five judges voting on the decision had “little difficulty agreeing that the Masking Order represents an attempt by the Acting Secretary to impose a new, binding norm,” according to the court’s 31-page ruling.
“Preliminarily, we note that we express herein no opinion regarding the science or efficacy of mask-wearing or the politics underlying the considerable controversy the subject continues to engender,” Judge Christine Cannon wrote. “Instead, we decide herein only the narrow legal question of whether the Acting Secretary acted properly in issuing the Masking Order in the absence of either legislative oversight or a declaration of disaster emergency by the Governor.”
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The five judges voted 4-1 in throwing out the mandate. The one judge who supported the mandate, Michael Wojcik, wrote that Alison Beam, the state’s acting health secretary, had not acted with fraud or bad faith and was acting according to the situation at hand.
Beam implemented the order on Aug. 31 at the start of the school year, a response to the delta variant of COVID-19 as cases skyrocketed 300% among children between mid-July and the end of August. The mandate, which took effect on Sept. 7 required that all teachers, students, staff, or visitors wear masks whenever inside a Pennsylvania school.
Gov. Tom Wolf announced Monday that local leaders would have the authority to mandate masks inside K-12 schools on Jan. 17, 2022. Wolf said the state is in a different position now than it was in September when the mandate was introduced and that “it is time to prepare for a transition back to a more normal setting,” according to the governor’s website.
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There have been 10,998 children ages 4 and under and 64,674 children ages 5-18 diagnosed with COVID-19 since Aug. 16 in Pennsylvania, according to the state’s Department of Health.
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
