In this quarter’s column, we explore a case involving the court’s denial of an application for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction enjoining the enforcement of COVID-19 mask mandates and regulations distinguishing vaccinated and unvaccinated people. We also discuss a case involving the court’s denial of a motion to amend a complaint where the plaintiff asserted a new theory of liability separate and distinct from the original complaint.

Pro Se Plaintiff’s Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction Denied in Case Alleging Violation of Equal Protection Rights as an Unvaccinated Individual. In Strong v. Zucker, No. 6:21-CV-06532-DGL, 2022 WL 245351 (W.D.N.Y. Jan. 27, 2022), plaintiff Michael Strong sued the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health (NYDOH), challenging 10 NYCRR 66-3, a COVID-19 regulation concerning the wearing of masks in public. Plaintiff also alleged that the NYDOH’s actions violated the Nuremberg Code, “a set of medical principles for ethical human experimentation laid out in an opinion issued by one of the military tribunals at the Nuremberg Trials …” Strong, 2022 WL 245351 at *1. On Aug. 27, 2021, the NYDOH repealed the face-mask regulation and plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint dropping his objection to the mask mandate, but requesting declaratory and injunctive relief from the state to recognize “natural immunity” as being as effective as the COVID-19 vaccine, and to end any regulations or programs that require a distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. Id.