A state appeals court Friday refused to overturn an order that closed a Pennsylvania restaurant for disobeying Gov. Tom Wolf’s COVID-19 restrictions requiring its workers and customers to wear face masks.
The Commonwealth Court panel’s decision in the case of The Crack’d Egg of Pittsburgh marks the defeat of yet another legal challenge to the validity of directives Wolf issued amid the pandemic.
Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer noted in the Commonwealth Court opinion that the state Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the governor’s emergency authority to issue those edicts.
The Crack’d Egg case involves a battle between the restaurant owners and the Allegheny County County Health Department.
Health department officials claimed the restaurant didn’t comply with several requests to obey the mask mandate and restrictions on dining facility occupancy Wolf issued in July 2020.
The county health department ordered that The Crack’d Egg be closed in August 2020, but soon learned of the owner’s intent to reopen by way of postings on social media, Jubelirer noted. When inspections showed the eatery was still operating in violation of the COVID-19 restrictions the health department sought and secured a preliminary injunction from the county court to close it.
A county judge rejected The Crack’d Egg’s contentions that Wolf’s orders were not appropriate responses to the pandemic and were in fact violations of constitutional rights. The restaurant owner also questioned whether the wearing of face masks did anything to curb the spread of COVID-19, Jubelirer noted.
The Crack’d Egg challenged the issuance of the preliminary injunction in its appeal to Commonwealth Court, which found the county judge had justification for handing down the order to close the eatery until it complied with the state and local COVID-19 mandates.
The case might not be over, however, since Jubelirer sent the dispute back to the county court where the restaurant owners could continue to press their arguments that Wolf’s restrictions aren’t legal.