The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Montana
- Level
- Court
- Authority
- Mont. Const. art. II, secs. 4, 10, 17; Mont. Code Ann. 20-3-324 (school trustees' powers); Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905)
- Issued
- 2023-12-12 Dec. 12, 2023
- Effective
- 2023-12-12 (the mask policies reviewed were adopted in the summer of 2021 for the 2021-2022 school year) (read as 2023-12-12)
- End
- n/a
- In force
- Dec. 12, 2023 (no end date recorded; counted as in force for 120 days)
- Limitation types
- Face-covering requirementSchools and child careWorkplace rules
- Addressees
- employers (school districts as public employers); persons generally (students, staff, visitors)
- Character
- adjudication
- Collection
- Standing duties: Montana DUT-MT
Operative words
The District Court also appropriately granted the School Districts' summary judgment motion... based on the uncontroverted facts that the School Districts, prior to adoption of the policies, considered information and recommendations of reputable public and private health care providers and agencies, including the CDC, which all recommended universal masking.
Penalty
What it required
Montana's highest court held that public employers' 2021-22 requirements that 'everyone who entered the schools--students, staff, teachers, visitors, and volunteers--... wear a mask at all times' were lawful measures rationally related to 'slowing the spread of COVID-19', reviewed under Jacobson's deference to measures with 'a real and substantial relation to protection of public health and safety', and grounded in the recommendations of the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Montana Medical Association and the State and county health agencies; the CDC's recommendation became the mandatory rule of the workplace through the employer's adoption of it, and the court sustained that adoption. Character as recorded: adjudication (guidance_incorporated layer).
Retrieval noteFootnote 5 quotes Fortuna v. Town of Winslow (D. Me. 2022) on 'the duty of the school to provide a safe environment for all children... and for others who work or volunteer in the school'. The decision post-dates the claim quarters and is cited for the legal character of the 2021 measures and the deference owed to them, not as an instrument in force. The district mask requirements it reviewed are the library's MT-088 (secondary). The opinion does not discuss 27-1-1608.