Whether mandated weekly Covid-19 medical testing for government employees violates Fourth Amendment rights and whether such testing is a clearly established constitutional violation

QUESTIONS PRESENTED On August 6, 2021, New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Stuart Rabner and Judge Glenn Grant, in their administrative capacities as the heads of the New Jersey judicial branch of government, issued a policy requiring judiciary employees who had not taken a complete series of the Covid-19 shots to begin weekly Covid-19 medical testing as a condition of continued employment. App.48a, App.52a. On August 23, 2021, Governor Murphy issued a similar policy that applied to public and private school and preschool workers who had not provided proof that they had taken a complete series of the Covid-19 shots. App.388a On September 20, 2021, the Head of Human Resources of the Office of Legislative Services (“OLS”) issued a similar policy for legislative branch employees. App.58a All the testing mandates went into effect between August and October 2021 and remained in effect until August 2022. Petitioners filed this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Chief Justice Rabner, Judge Glenn Grant, and Governor Murphy in their official and personal capacities. Petitioners challenged the constitutionality of the medical testing under the Fourth Amendment and the substantive due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court dismissed the official capacity claims as moot and held that the individual defendants had qualified immunity for the personal capacity claims. The Third Circuit affirmed. THE QUESTIONS PRESENTED ARE: 1. Whether the mandated weekly medical testing and reporting under these policies violated Petitioners’ Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable ii search and seizure and, if so, whether the right to be free from such testing is clearly established under the Fourth Amendment. 2. Whether Petitioners’ claims were properly dismissed as moot when the government actors responsible for the medical testing mandate evaded judicial review of Petitioners’ request for a preliminary injunction by seeking and obtaining repeated extensions from the Court on the motion’s return date so that the mandates could be withdrawn while the motion was pending and, upon withdrawing the mandates, made no representation that they would not be reinstated. 3. If the Third Circuit properly dismissed the Amended Complaint based on the doctrines of qualified immunity and mootness, whether the combination of those doctrines, as applied, violates Petitioners’ right to petition the government for redress of grievances. 4. Whether the medical test mandates violated Petitioners’ Fourteenth Amendment rights to privacy and bodily integrity.