The COVID Blog
January 19, 2021
LUDLOW, SHROPSHIRE (U.K.) — A potential legal precedent was set in a case involving a disabled person and COVID mask policies.
A disabled woman attempted to enter an establishment without a mask. She was told to leave because she was unable to cover her face. The woman, with the help of Kester Disability Rights, served the company a notice of forthcoming litigation. The company did not contest the fact that the woman was denied entry. It also acknowledged that the actions likely violated the U.K.’s Equality Act of 2010. A confidential, out-of-court settlement was negotiated for £7,000, or about $9,500. The settlement, including non-disclosure agreements, prevented the case from being filed in court.
Relevance to the United States
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are the equivalent/related statutes in the United States. Your U.S. medical records and information are confidential, pursuant to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Simply declaring “I’m exempt” or that you have a disability is sufficient to meet medical exemptions related to masks. Public humiliation and refusal of service are prima facie claims for relief if you’re able to prove in court that a disability or some other medical condition exists. It’s the same legal doctrine that outlaws “no coloreds allowed” and similar discriminatory business practices.
Video evidence, of course, makes these cases even stronger. Further, no company, particularly small businesses, want a messy public legal battle premised on a controversial issue like face masks. The foregoing case does not establish precedent that can be cited in a lawsuit. But it’s clear that the attorneys for the offending business understood the ramifications of a discrimination lawsuit about masks. It takes only one of these cases being filed in a court to open the Pandora’s Box. Thus, most companies will likely settle the case if the preponderance of evidence is in your favor.
In the UK the british government website states you dont need to wear a mask if you are medically exempt and you dont even need to show a doctors note. Most business are aware of this and wont deny entry to such a person as it can cost them alot of money in legal damages.
That’s positive to hear they’re not hassling people who can’t wear a mask even if it took a lawsuit. I will keep this story in mind when I return to a school classroom. I have a mask exemption but do not know if our district will honor it, or where they are going to go with all the C19 protocols after summer. So far, here in CA, the schools have been pathetically paranoid about covid and follow the state. I do not trust my them one nanometer. They’ll probably discriminate, or try to, because I am one of the few educators not jabbed with the toxic shots.
Kriss, the time has come for all to say “enough is enough.” Every healthy human being has a mask exemption!!
Would anyone hit oneself on the head with a ball peen hammer once an hour if it was a requirement to keep a job? Or would a person start smoking? Because those are LITERALLY comparable — people are being asked to inflict damage on their own health as a condition of employment.
It is cut and dried physiology that when exhalation of CO2 is frustrated, the lungs must work harder to inhale yet take in less of what it needs, which necessarily lowers blood oxygen and raises the heart rate. And that is not even taking into consideration the disgusting and potentially really nasty bacteria that collects in the mask and goes back into the lungs, that your body SHOULD have been exhaling clear and wide to dissipate and quickly die in the open air.
It is wrong beyond imagination to require that employees or customers wear masks. That it is being COMPLIED WITH is truly frightening. I would QUIT any job that required it or that I take an experimental medical injection, and have the family live in a campground first. The Lord will provide.
In the UK you can apply to Transport for London to send you a badge which states
“I am exempt from wearing a face covering”. The NHS website specifically states do not contact a doctor to obtain an exemption. Government advice has been that businesses should not challenge the unmasked (or thinkers as I like to call them). However 13 months of propaganda means that now there is no mandate in England to wear masks in shops many still do. Especially socially-aware people in their 20s & 30s because they don’t want to be “granny killers”. The thought police have done their damage.