Family Can Sue School District That Injected Son With Covid-19 Jab Without Consent, Court Rules

North Carolina’s Supreme Court has given the green light for a family to sue a school district that administered the COVID-19 shot to their son without consent.

The majority-conservative court’s 5-2 ruling last Friday allows mom Emily Happel’s suit against a Guilford County high school, which jabbed her then-14-year-old son Tanner Smith in August 2021, to move forward, reversing an appeals court’s previous decision halting the lawsuit citing the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act.

In his majority opinion, North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby dismissed the appeals court’s PREP Act argument and upheld the mother’s right to make medical decisions on behalf of her son.

“[W]e are tasked with considering whether Congress intended the PREP Act to immunize state actors who forcibly vaccinate a child without his or his parent’s consent, thereby committing a battery and infringing their fundamental rights under the state constitution,” North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote in his majority opinion.

“The PREP Act’s plain text leads us to conclude that its immunity only covers tort injuries. Because tort injuries are not constitutional violations, the PREP Act does not bar plaintiffs’ constitutional claims,” Newby wrote, according to The Carolina Journal.

“First, we agree that the state constitution protects a parent’s right to control her child’s upbringing, including her right to make medical decisions on her child’s behalf,” Newby continued.

“[T]he constitutional right to full ‘custody and control’ over one’s minor children would ring hollow if it did not include the right to consent on the child’s behalf, as well as the right to seek a constitutional remedy when the State disregards the absence of that consent… Our state constitution and caselaw have long implied the existence of the precise right plaintiffs claim here. We directly recognize it today.”