By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

For the second time, a federal court has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) by the estate of a 24-year-old college student who died in 2021 from complications of COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week ruled that the family of George Watts Jr. lacked standing to sue because the sovereign immunity doctrine protects the federal government from lawsuits.

Attorney Ray Flores, who represents Watts’ family, told The Defender he plans to appeal. Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is funding the suit.

The suit was first dismissed in 2024 by U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols. However, the case was reopened after Flores challenged the ruling.

Flores succeeded in his argument that Nichols alone could not dismiss the case, because, under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) of 2005, only a three-judge panel has jurisdiction to grant or deny a motion to dismiss.

The PREP Act grants wide-ranging immunity to the manufacturers of treatments and countermeasures authorized during a public health emergency. The immunity also extends to those who administer the treatments and countermeasures.

COVID-19 vaccines are classified as a “covered countermeasure” under the PREP Act.

In its latest dismissal, the court ruled that the PREP Act does not revoke the sovereign immunity of the government or federal agencies, but “explicitly preserves it.” The second dismissal used language identical to that used in the court’s initial dismissal of the suit.

CHD General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg said the ruling “is concerning, because on its face it shows no additional consideration of the unique issues underlying this case from the original order improperly signed by a single judge.”

College-mandated COVID shots led to Watts’ death

Watts was a student at SUNY Corning Community College in Corning, New York, in the summer of 2021, when the school mandated the COVID-19 vaccine for all students attending fall classes.

Not wanting to receive a vaccine that wasn’t yet fully licensed, Watts waited until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted full approval to the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine. At the time, COVID-19 vaccines were available under emergency use authorization (EUA).

Watts received his first dose on Aug. 27, 2021 — four days after the FDA approved the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine. He received his second dose on Sept. 17, 2021.

However, Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital in Pennsylvania, where Watts was vaccinated, administered the EUA version of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shot instead of the fully licensed Pfizer Comirnaty shot, because the DOD had not made Comirnaty available to the public.

Watts sustained “medical symptoms” after his first dose and more serious side effects after the second dose. These included numbness in his extremities, difficulty grasping and holding objects, a sinus infection, cough, sensitivity to light and a lump on the side of his neck.

His symptoms led to two visits to the Guthrie hospital emergency room (ER) in October 2021, a week apart from each other. However, Watts’ health continued to decline. On Oct. 27, 2021, he began coughing up blood and then became unresponsive. He was taken to the ER, where he was found to be in cardiac arrest. He died that day.

Watts had no previous medical history that could explain his sudden death. He also tested negative for COVID-19 in a post-mortem test. His death certificate listed COVID-19 vaccine-related myocarditis as the sole immediate cause of death.

Watts’ family first sought compensation for his death under the federal Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). However, they received no determination from the CICP within the 240-day period during which the CICP is supposed to respond to complaints, leading them to file their lawsuit.

Lawsuit claims DOD engaged in ‘willful misconduct’

After Watts’ death, his family sued the DOD and then-U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III in his official capacity. Current U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth replaced Austin as the case’s sole defendant.

The DOD oversaw the development and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines under Operation Warp Speed.

According to the lawsuit, the DOD engaged in “quintessential ‘bait and switch’ fraud.” The DOD misled the public by using the fact that Comirnaty was FDA-approved to bolster its claims that the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA shot was “safe and effective.”

Although the PREP Act bars lawsuits against the manufacturers of “covered countermeasures,” there’s one exception — if the person who was injured can prove that the vaccine maker or the person who administered the vaccine engaged in “willful misconduct.”

Under federal law, willful misconduct is defined as an act or omission that occurs intentionally to achieve a wrongful purpose, knowingly without legal or factual justification, and in disregard of a known or obvious risk that is so great as to make it highly probable that the harm will outweigh the benefit.

Watts’ family alleges that the DOD engaged in “willful misconduct” by continuing to distribute only the EUA Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shot — even after the FDA had granted full approval to Comirnaty.

“The DOD did this despite being fully aware that drugs granted Emergency Use Authorization cannot legally be marketed as ‘safe and effective,’ because the FDA standard for EUA is only that drugs ‘may be effective,’” said pharmaceutical research and development executive Sasha Latypova.

In November 2021, a federal judge rejected a DOD claim that the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine and the fully approved Comirnaty vaccine were “interchangeable.”

Mack Rosenberg said the three-judge panel should have considered the plaintiffs’ claims regarding sovereign immunity and willful misconduct instead of repeating the justification of the initial dismissal.

“It is disappointing that the three-judge panel went no further in analyzing complex issues such as waiver of sovereign immunity, due process and willful misconduct.

The Watts case is an unprecedented suit in the 20 years of the PREP Act and requires careful consideration of these complexities,” Rosenberg said.

Related articles in The Defender

• Breaking: Federal Court Reopens Case of 24-Year-Old Who Died of COVID Vaccine-Induced Myocarditis
• Family Opposes Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit Against DOD Over Death of 24-Year-Old From COVID-Vaccine-Related Myocarditis
• Breaking: Family of 24-Year-Old Who Died From COVID Vaccine Sues DOD in ‘Groundbreaking Case’
• ‘Heartless’: New York Times Sinks to ‘New Low,’ Suggests 24-Year-Old’s Myocarditis Death Not Caused by Vaccine
• Federal Judge Rejects DOD Claim That Pfizer EUA and Comirnaty Vaccines Are ‘Interchangeable’
• Schools Can’t ‘Forcibly Vaccinate’ Kids Without Parents’ Consent, North Carolina Supreme Court Rules

The post ‘Concerning’: Federal Court Again Dismisses Case of 24-Year-Old Who Died After COVID Vaccine appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.

 

IPAK-EDU is grateful to The Defender as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More