The Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed Governor Tim Walz's legal right to enforce a mask mandate during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, under the authority granted by the declared public health emergency. This decision, announced on Monday, resolves a lawsuit filed by the Upper Midwest Law Center challenging the constitutionality of the mandate, which was implemented in July 2020 after a peacetime emergency declaration in March 2020 and subsequently lifted in May 2021.
The court's ruling addresses a crucial legal question referred by the Minnesota Supreme Court: whether the Minnesota Emergency Management Act of 1996 empowers the governor to declare a peacetime emergency in response to a public health crisis like the pandemic. The court deemed this a matter of significant statewide importance. The plaintiffs argued that the pandemic did not qualify as a natural occurrence under state law, suggesting a likely laboratory origin for the virus. The court dismissed this argument as unreasonable. This ruling aligns with the court's earlier decision in a case involving a restaurant owner convicted of violating pandemic-related orders.
