The majority opinion, per curiam, explained the administration, through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, demanded the mandate, “which employers must enforce,” for “roughly 84 million employees.”

The mandate requires that workers gets a COVID-19 “vaccine” and it overrules state laws to the contrary.

“OSHA has never [before] imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here,” the opinion said.

“Many states, businesses, and nonprofit organizations challenged OSHA’s rule in courts of appeals … the Fifth Circuit initially entered a stay. But when the cases were consolidated before the Sixth Circuit, that court lifted the stay and allowed OSHA’s rule to take effect. ”

Before the high court was a request for “emergency relief,” on the basis that the requirement exceeds the government agency’s authority.

“Agreeing that applicants are likely to prevail, we grant their applications and stay the rule.”

The opinion noted that OSHA is allowed to create emergency rules, a provision that had been used nine times earlier. But of those challenged in court, only one eventually was upheld in full in court disputes.

The Biden rule, which his administration already had admitted was a “work-around” to constitutional limits, was described by the court as a “blunt instrument.”

“It draws no distinctions based on industry or risk of exposure to COVID-19. Thus, most lifeguards and lineman face the same regulations as do medics and meatpackers.”

The opinion said those challenging the requirement “are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the secretary lacked authority to impose the mandate. Administrative agencies are creatures of statute. They accordingly possess only the authority that Congress has provided. The secretary has ordered 84 million Americans to either obtain a COVID-19 vaccine or undergo weekly medical testing at their own expense. This is no ‘everyday exercise of federal power.'”

“It is instead a significant encroachment into the lives – and health – of a vast number of employees.”

The law, the ruling said, “does not” authorize the secretary’s mandate. OSHA can set “workplace” safety standards, “not broad public health measures.”

A minority concurrence said such responsibilities belong to the states.

The three liberals on the bench, Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, who previously claimed incorrectly that 100,000 children were hospitalized and in poor condition, joined in a dissent that promoted mandatory shots whenever the government would choose such a course.

In their dissent, they did appeared to skate by the fact that the vaccines are experimental, that there are huge – sometimes fatal – side effects from the shots, and more.

The three accused their own colleagues on the bench of “acting outside” of their “competence.”

They claimed the rule “would save over 6,500 lives and prevent over 250,000 hospitalizations,” as explained by OSHA.

“We ‘lack[] the background, competence, and expertise to assess’ workplace health and safety issues,” they wrote. “When we are wise, we know enough to defer on matters like this one. When we are wise, we know not to displace the judgments of experts, acting within the sphere Congress marked out and under presidential control, to deal with emergency conditions. Today, we are not wise.”

Ryan Bangert of Alliance Defending Freedom, said, “The Supreme Court correctly concluded that the federal administrative state has no authority to treat unvaccinated employees like workplace hazards and to compel employers to carry out the government’s unlawful national vaccine mandate.

“The Biden administration’s mandate would have a profoundly negative effect on those employers and the 80 million American workers who are affected, and that is why the Supreme Court was right to immediately halt its enforcement. Sadly, mandating vaccines through an OSHA emergency rule is yet another example of government overreach. Now that the Supreme Court has stayed the mandate, we look forward to pressing forward with our substantive litigation on behalf of the clients we represent in the consolidated cases challenging the mandate at the 6th Circuit.”