Vt. High Court Says PREP Act Immunizes School District from COVID-19 Vaccine Lawsuit

MONTPELIER, Vt. — The Vermont Supreme Court has affirmed that a school district and its employees are immune under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act from a lawsuit accusing it of negligently giving a child a COVID-19 vaccine by mistake.

The court concluded that the plaintiffs’ allegations relating to consent and alleged misconduct of defendants in vaccinating the child are causally related to the administration of a countermeasure that is covered under the Act.

In 2021, Dario and Shujen Politella’s five-year-old son, L.P., was given a dose of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a state-sponsored vaccine clinic at …