National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety & Health Administration

On November 5, 2021, OSHA issued an Emergency Temporary Standard requiring employers with 100 or more employees to mandate COVID-19 vaccination or weekly testing and masking. The National Federation of Independent Business, along with Ohio, Texas, and other states, challenged the mandate, arguing OSHA had grossly exceeded its statutory authority. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court on an emergency application to stay the rule. On January 13, 2022, the Court granted the application, holding that COVID-19 is a universal risk not within OSHA's occupational safety jurisdiction, and that the mandate represented a sweeping assertion of power requiring clear congressional authorization.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay, ruling 6-3 that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits. The per curiam decision held that the vaccine-or-test ETS exceeded OSHA's authority and was stayed pending further review, effectively blocking the mandate.

Whether OSHA possessed the statutory authority to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard compelling large employers to enforce a COVID-19 vaccine-or-test mandate, and whether such a mandate violated the major questions doctrine by exceeding the agency's occupational safety and health regulatory power.

The ruling immediately halted the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for large businesses nationwide. It significantly curtailed OSHA's ability to regulate broad public health crises under emergency powers and reinforced the major questions doctrine, signaling the judiciary's willingness to limit federal agency actions in the absence of explicit congressional delegation.