Protecting Americans’ Medical Rights Act
Bill: H.R.6811 | Sponsor: Rep. Harshbarger, Diana (R-TN)
Policy area: Law

Summary:
Protecting Americans' Medical Rights Act
This bill allows an individual to file a civil action for injuries sustained as a result of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine against a government entity that imposed such vaccination requirement. In addition, a state or local government receiving federal funding related to COVID-19 waives their sovereign immunity against such a civil action.

To permit civil actions against the United States or any State or local 
          government entity for COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Protecting Americans' Medical Rights 
Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) Government-imposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates that 
        threaten Americans' jobs and livelihoods are authoritarian, 
        unnecessary, overreaching, irrational, and needlessly divisive, 
        and lack a purported scientific basis for public health needs.
            (2) The policy of the United States is to recognize, 
        defend, and protect the inherent rights of the individual, 
        including the right of liberty, the right to be secure in one's 
        person, the right of the individual to be informed about any 
        medical procedures, treatment, or vaccination, and the right of 
        the individual to provide or withhold consent to such 
        procedures, treatment, or vaccination.
            (3) Data from the Centers for Disease Control and 
        Prevention (CDC) confirm that while COVID-19 vaccination can 
        lessen the severity of illness for individuals in certain 
        higher risk categories, it DOES NOT preclude Americans from 
        contracting, spreading, or being hospitalized by the COVID-19 
        virus.
            (4) As a medical matter, the COVID-19 vaccine may not be 
        appropriate for everyone. Because of potential risks that 
        COVID-19 vaccines may pose to certain people, it is important 
        that every patient be able to consult his or her doctor or 
        other medical health care provider to determine whether one of 
        the COVID-19 vaccines is safe and appropriate.
            (5) A significant body of peer-reviewed scientific studies 
        concludes that COVID-19 vaccines are among a wide range of 
        clinical public health tools available and accessible to 
        Americans for mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 virus.
            (6) Other scientifically confirmed clinical safeguard tools 
        for mitigating and protecting against COVID-19 include--
                    (A) the durable and lasting protection of natural 
                immunity from previous COVID-19 infection;
                    (B) therapeutics, including oral antiviral 
                medications;
                    (C) periodic testing;
                    (D) air filtration or purification systems;
                    (E) choosing to wear masks, shields, and other 
                personal protective equipment (PPE);
                    (F) remote work settings; and
                    (G) social distancing.
            (7) Wise and constitutionally permissible government 
        policies aimed at mitigating adverse public health effects from 
        COVID-19 must be based on clear and consistent scientific 
        evidence, while respecting the fundamental individual liberties 
        and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. Such policies must 
        also seek the path or combinations of paths that least infringe 
        on individual liberties to achieve public health gains.
            (8) Due in large part to the vacillating, arbitrary, 
        inconsistent, and at times nontransparent and scientifically 
        tenuous COVID-19 guidances issued by the CDC and other 
        government agencies, Americans may have legitimate questions, 
        concerns, and confusion about what best serves their medical 
        needs with respect to the COVID-19 virus.
            (9) Americans holding such legitimate questions and 
        concerns--or being opposed to COVID-19 vaccine mandates--DOES 
        NOT equate to their being ``antivaccine'' or ``antiscience''. 
        It is altogether and entirely consistent for Americans to be 
        ``provaccine'' for what makes sense for their and their 
        family's personal health needs in consultation with their 
        board-certified physician or other health care provider, and 
        also be ``antivaccine mandate''.
            (10) To date, there is no scientific data to suggest 
        employment settings pose any increased or special risk for 
        COVID-19 transmission among individuals, as compared to home, 
        social, or other gatherings.
            (11) The protection of individual rights to make one's own 
        medical decisions in consultation with one's health care 
        provider--without fear of coercion, forced vaccination, loss of 
        civil liberties, or risk of adverse employment action--is 
        especially needed at a time when it is critical for the Nation 
        to increase trust in public health officials. Protection of 
        these individual rights is also vital for encouraging, where 
        and when medically appropriate, vaccination or other scientific 
        measures for keeping Americans safe and healthy.
            (12) Under current law, Americans who sustain adverse 
        health effects or injuries resulting from COVID-19 vaccination 
        generally have minimal and restricted compensation recourses. 
        They are generally confined to the notoriously stingy 
        Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).
            (13) The CICP is managed through an administrative process, 
        where there is no court, judge, or right to appeal. Decisions 
        about compensation are made in a figurative black hole by a 
        nameless administrator. Compensation for lost wages and death 
        benefits are arbitrarily capped, there is no opportunity for 
        collecting damages for pain and suffering, and there is only a 
        one-year statutory limit for making a claim. In addition, there 
        is no compensation for attorney fees, which makes it extremely 
        difficult for vaccine-injured Americans to find counsel willing 
        to represent them.
            (14) Since the advent of the COVID-19 vaccines and as of 
        February 1, 2022, there have been NO compensation awards issued 
        by the CICP for COVID-19 vaccine injury claims.
            (15) The United States constitutional structure demands 
        measures of accountability for government actions that infringe 
        individual liberties and could cause harm. If Congress or the 
        courts fail to nullify, overturn, or invalidate unnecessary, 
        authoritarian, and overreaching COVID-19 vaccine mandates that 
        threaten the loss of employment for noncompliance, Americans 
        oppressed by such mandates and coerced into vaccination should 
        be able to hold governments accountable. They should have full 
        and unfettered access to legal recourses for any adverse health 
        effects or injuries sustained from such COVID-19 vaccine 
        mandates. This should include the right to bring civil actions 
        for declaratory or injunctive relief, or monetary compensatory 
        damages, including economic and noneconomic damages, against 
        Federal, State, and local government entities that impose such 
        mandates.
            (16) It is well-established that Congress' power under 
        article I, section 8, clause 1 of the Constitution, also known 
        as the Spending Clause, includes the power to require the 
        States to abide by certain conditions in exchange for receiving 
        Federal financial assistance. The Supreme Court has explained 
        that one such lawful condition may be States voluntarily 
        waiving their sovereign immunity from suit (under the Eleventh 
        Amendment to the Constitution or otherwise). South Dakota v. 
        Dole (483 U.S. 203 (1987)); College Savings Bank v. Florida 
        Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board (527 U.S. 666 
        (1999)).
            (17) Such a conditional waiver does not coerce a State. The 
        Supreme Court has explicitly recognized that when Congress 
        expresses a funding condition ``unambiguously'', a State's 
        acceptance of Federal funds constitutes a knowing agreement to 
        a congressionally imposed condition on the funds. Pennhurst 
        State School & Hospital v. Halderman (451 U.S. 1, 17 (1981)). 
        Accordingly, while Congress may not compel States to waive 
        their sovereign immunity, a voluntary State waiver is wholly 
        permissible. Alden v. Maine (527 U.S. 706 (1999)).
            (18) This Act protects Americans' constitutional medical 
        rights by ensuring that individuals subject to a scientifically 
        tenuous ``Hobson's Choice'' of employment-threatening COVID-19 
        vaccine mandate, where they feel forced into vaccination 
        against their will, are able to seek equitable and appropriate 
        legal remedies for any COVID-19 vaccine injuries, remedies that 
        are extremely limited or disallowed under current law.
            (19) This Act further protects Americans' constitutional 
        medical rights by holding Federal, State, and local governments 
        accountable for unnecessary, irrational, overreaching, and 
        liberty-infringing COVID-19 vaccine mandates, when many other 
        scientifically proven, and less liberty-intrusive, tools exist 
        for mitigating the effects of and protecting against COVID-19.

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act:
            (1) Aggrieved individual.--The term ``aggrieved 
        individual'' includes--
                    (A) an individual who received or is required to 
                receive a COVID-19 vaccine as a result of Executive 
                Order 14042 or 14043 to prevent the termination, or any 
                other adverse consequence, of the employment of the 
                individual with a Federal agency, or as a condition of 
                new employment;
                    (B) an individual who received a COVID-19 vaccine 
                as a result of a Federal agency requirement (or is 
                required to do so by the individual's employer acting 
                pursuant to a Federal agency requirement) as a 
                condition of new or continued employment, including a 
                COVID-19 vaccine requirement resulting from--
                            (i) the rule titled ``COVID-19 Vaccination 
                        and Testing; Emergency Temporary Standard'' 
                        published on November 5, 2021 (86 Fed. Reg. 
                        61402 et seq.); or
                            (ii) the rule titled ``Medicare and 
                        Medicaid Programs; Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care 
                        Staff Vaccination'' published November 5, 2021 
                        (86 Fed. Reg. 61555 et seq.); and
                    (C) an individual who received or is required to 
                receive a COVID-19 vaccine as a result of a State or 
                local governmental requirement, or by their employer 
                that is acting pursuant to a State or local 
                governmental requirement, as a condition of new or 
                continued employment.
            (2) COVID-19 vaccine.--The term ``COVID-19 vaccine'' means 
        a vaccine that is intended to prevent or mitigate coronavirus 
        disease 2019, including any booster to such a vaccine.
            (3) Federal agency.--The term ``Federal agency'' means any 
        department, agency, office, or other entity in the executive 
        branch of the Federal Government.
            (4) Injuries.--The term ``injuries'' includes any adverse 
        health effects, reactions, and other adverse health 
        consequences, including incapacity or wrongful death, resulting 
        from COVID-19 vaccination.

SEC. 4. CIVIL ACTIONS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OR ANY STATE OR LOCAL 
              GOVERNMENT ENTITY FOR COVID-19 VACCINATION MANDATES.

    (a) Action Authorized.--In lieu of seeking compensation under 
sections 319F-3 and 319F-4 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 
247d-6d, 247d-6e), any aggrieved individual, or in the case of a 
deceased aggrieved individual his or her survivors, may commence an 
action against the United States, or against any State or local 
governmental entity, whichever imposed the applicable requirements, in 
an appropriate district court of the United States, seeking declaratory 
or injunctive relief and compensatory damages, including economic and 
noneconomic damages, for injuries sustained by the aggrieved individual 
as a result of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.
    (b) Liability.--The United States and any State or local 
governmental entity, whichever imposed the applicable requirements, 
shall be liable to any aggrieved individual, or in the case of a 
deceased aggrieved individual his or her survivors, for injuries 
sustained by the aggrieved individual as a result of receiving a COVID-
19 vaccine.
    (c) Attorney's Fees.--The court may award attorney's fees to an 
aggrieved individual who prevails in an action under this section (or 
to his or her survivors who so prevail if applicable).

SEC. 5. VOLUNTARY WAIVER OF STATE AND LOCAL SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY AS 
              CONDITION OF RECEIVING ANY FEDERAL FUNDING RELATED TO 
              COVID-19.

    The receipt or use, on or after the date of enactment of this Act, 
of any Federal funding related to COVID-19 by a State or political 
subdivision of a State (including any municipal or county government) 
is deemed to constitute a clear and unequivocal expression of, and 
agreement to, waiving sovereign immunity under the 11th Amendment to 
the Constitution or otherwise, to a civil action for declaratory or 
injunctive relief, compensatory damages, and attorney's fees under 
section 4.

SEC. 6. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

    Nothing in this Act may be construed to permit or otherwise 
authorize a COVID-19 vaccination mandate under Federal law (including 
any regulation).
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