By STEVEN ALLEN ADAMS

Staff Reporter

CHARLESTON – The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals put a halt to an order from a lower court that ordered state and local school officials to accept religious vaccine exemptions granted by the state for school-age children.

In a three-page order released Tuesday afternoon, the state Supreme Court issued a stay of a Nov. 26 written ruling by 14th Judicial Circuit Judge Michael Froble in Guzman v. West Virginia Board of Education.

Froble’s order granted permanent injunctive and declaratory relief to the plaintiffs and a certified class of families with religious vaccine exemptions statewide except those with pending cases before other circuit court judges. However, the Supreme Court’s order freezes all further activity in the circuit court case until the underlying petition is fully adjudicated by the higher court.

“Upon consideration and review, the Court is of the opinion to, and does, grant the petitioners’ motion to stay,” the Supreme Court order stated. “Enforcement of the circuit court’s November 26, 2025, ‘Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order Granting Permanent Injunction and Declaratory Relief’ and any further proceedings in circuit court are stayed pending resolution of this petition for a writ of prohibition.”

Attorneys representing the West Virginia Board of Education, State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt, the Raleigh County Board of Education, and attorneys for an unidentified Jane Doe who works in the Raleigh County school system, filed an expedited motion to stay the proceedings in Raleigh County.

This followed a written ruling from Froble in October turning the Raleigh County case into a class action lawsuit for the more than 570 individuals granted religious exemptions to date, as well as any religious exemptions granted in the future.

In his Nov. 26 written order, Froble cited the Equal Protection for Religion Act (EPRA) – created by House Bill 2042 in 2023 prohibiting excessive government limitations on the exercise of religious faith – as allowing for Gov. Patrick Morrisey to use his executive order authority to create a religious exemption to West Virginia’s compulsory vaccine law (CVL).

State Code requires children be vaccinated against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella and hepatitis B. But Morrisey signed an executive order in January allowing for religious and conscientious objections to the vaccination mandates citing EPRA, issuing additional guidance to the Department of Health and county school systems later in the spring.

The state Board of Education instructed county school systems to follow existing State Code in a June unanimous vote. The board had rescinded its guidance following Froble’s ruling last week, but in a statement Tuesday evening, the state board said the guidance to reject state-granted religious exemptions is back in place.

“In light of the West Virginia Supreme Court’s stay of the class certification order and the permanent injunction order entered in Raleigh County Circuit Court, the West Virginia Board of Education is reinstating its directive to county boards of education not to accept religious exemptions to compulsory vaccination laws,” according to the statement. “This directive will be in effect until the Supreme Court issues further guidance.”

Following the state board vote, Raleigh County parent Miranda Guzman filed a lawsuit along with other parents against state and local education officials seeking to force her county school system to accept her state-granted religious vaccine exemption for her children. Morrisey attended a press conference with Guzman and her attorneys in support of her lawsuit.

Froble previously granted a preliminary injunction last summer in the Raleigh County case which has already been appealed to the state Supreme Court of Appeals by the West Virginia Board of Education. Circuit court judges in Kanawha, Berkeley and Mineral counties have denied preliminary injunctions in similar lawsuits, siding with the state’s compulsory vaccine law.

A bill to allow for a religious vaccine exemption failed during the 2025 legislative session at the beginning of the year. Morrisey has since called on the Legislature to once again consider adding a religious exemption to State Code.

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com