A North Carolina mother's lawsuit regarding a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine that she says was given to her son without consent is moving forward. The state supreme court ruled Friday that the lawsuit against a public school board could proceed, the Washington Post reports. Emily Happel says the Guilford County Board of Education, in partnership with Old North State Medical Society (which is also named in the suit), ran a clinic at Western Guilford High School in August 2021 after a cluster of COVID cases broke out among members of the school's football team. The school had suspended team activities until all players were tested or cleared by a medical professional, and Happel says her son, then 14, was brought to the clinic by his stepfather, but that neither of them knew vaccines were being offered there.
Happel says her son did not want a vaccine, did not have a consent form with him, and that a staff member was instructed to give her son the vaccine regardless of the fact that no one was able to reach her by phone before doing so. She also claims no one attempted to talk it over with the boy's stepfather, who was waiting outside, and that her son protested the decision to be given the shot but it was given anyway, the Carolina Journal reports. The school board and medical society pushed for the suit to be dismissed, saying they are immune from liability under the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, but while two courts sided with them, the state's top court ultimately did not. Happel's suit, which her son has also joined, claims battery and violation of constitutional rights. (More COVID-19 stories.)
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