By Natalie DeCoste
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has won a legal battle that helps to affirm the government agency’s COVID-19 related authority.
A late-night order from the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Saturday granted a stay on an order from a federal judge in Tampa which was issued last month that blocked the CDC’s framework for allowing cruises to resume. The latest ruling from the Eleventh Circuit allows the CDC to continue enforcing safety protocols on ships.
In June, the lower court in Tampa ruled that the CDC was likely stepping outside its legal authority by imposing restrictions on the cruise industry. U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday issued a preliminary injunction against the CDC after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis brought suit.
“The CDC cites no historical precedent in which the federal government detained a fleet of vessels for more than a year and imposed comprehensive and impossibly detailed ‘technical guidelines’ before again permitting a vessel to sail. CDC cites no historical precedent for, in effect, closing an entire industry. … Although CDC enjoys the authority to temporarily detain a vessel … that authority is not boundless,” wrote Judge Merryday.
Judge Merryday’s preliminary injunction was set to take effect starting 12:01 on July 18, at which time the rules handed down by the CDC would become a non-binding “consideration,” “recommendation,” or “guideline.” In effect, the cruise ship rules would become the same tools used by CDC when addressing the practices in other similarly situated industries, such as airlines, railroads, hotels, casinos, and public transportation, among others.
The Eleventh circuit beat Judge Merryday’s injunction with its eleventh hour two to one decision, staying the previous ruling.
The Eleventh Circuit found that the lower court’s earlier decision ignored “what the protocols actually require: conventional communicable-disease control measures for cruise ships engaged in international travel, which fall easily within the CDC’s longstanding statutory and regulatory authority.”
The court added that Florida “disregards the threat to public health that would arise if cruise ship operators were at liberty to ignore the CDC guidance or to act without oversight from public-health authorities.”
The CDC is not the only one locked in a legal battle with Florida over its approach to coronavirus-related cruise ship regulations. Norwegian Cruise Lines filed a lawsuit seeking relief from Florida’s rule that makes it so companies cannot ask for vaccination documentation.
“Now, after months of Herculean efforts, NCLH is at last set to resume sailing August 15, 2021, in a way that will be safe, sound, and consistent with governing law…Yet one anomalous, misguided intrusion threatens to spoil NCLH’s careful planning and force it to cancel or hobble upcoming cruises, thereby imperiling and impairing passengers’ experiences and inflicting irreparable harm of vast dimensions,” read the cruise line’s impressively worded request.
The company filed the lawsuit in South Florida, but lawyers have already asked that the suit be moved to Judge Merryday’s court, most likely looking to capitalize on Judge Merryday’s sympathetic attitude toward the state.
