Federal Court Reopens Case of 24-Year-Old Who Died of COVID Vaccine-Induced Myocarditis

by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

Originally published at The Defender

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In a major win for medical freedom, a federal court today reopened a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) filed by the family of a 24-year-old college student who died from complications of COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis.

Judge Carl J. Nichols with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the lawsuit in September 2024, ruling that the federal government enjoys sovereign immunity, which protects it from lawsuits.

However, Ray Flores, the attorney representing the estate of George Watts Jr., challenged the dismissal. Flores argued that under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act), only a three-judge panel has jurisdiction to grant or deny a motion to dismiss.

After considering the motion, Nichols reversed the dismissal, ruling that his court lacked the jurisdiction to dismiss the suit.

A three-judge panel will now consider the original motion to dismiss, filed in 2023 by the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of the DOD. The panel will also consider the plaintiff’s argument against the dismissal.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is funding the suit.

Watts was a student at SUNY Corning Community College in Corning, New York, in the summer of 2021, when the school mandated the COVID-19 vaccine for all students attending fall classes.

Not wanting to receive a vaccine that wasn’t yet fully licensed, Watts waited until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted full approval to the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine.

He got his first dose at Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital in Pennsylvania on Aug. 27, 2021 — four days after the FDA had approved the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine on Aug. 23, 2021 — and his second dose on Sept. 17, 2021.

However, the hospital gave Watts the emergency use authorization (EUA) Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, not the licensed Comirnaty shot, because the DOD didn’t make the FDA-approved vaccines available to the public.

According to court documents, Watts suffered “medical symptoms” after his first dose and more serious neurological side effects, along with a sinus infection, after the second dose. He was treated with antibiotics, but his health continued to decline.

The 24-year-old had no previous medical history that would explain his death in the emergency room from cardiac arrest on Oct. 27, 2021. The medical examiner ruled the death was from “complications of COVID-19 vaccine-related myocarditis.”

His death certificate also listed COVID-19 vaccine-related myocarditis as the sole immediate cause of death.

Watts’ family first sought compensation for his death under the Health Resources & Services Administration’s Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

However, Watts’ family received no determination from the CICP within the 240-day period during which the CICP is supposed to respond to complaints, leading them to file their lawsuit.

After their son died, his family sued the DOD and Lloyd Austin III in his official capacity as defense secretary. The DOD oversaw the development and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines under Operation Warp Speed.

According to the lawsuit, the DOD “capitalized on a quintessential ‘bait and switch’ fraud,” using the fact that Comirnaty was FDA-approved to bolster its claims that the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine was “safe and effective,” misleading the American public in the process.

COVID-19 vaccines are classified as a “covered countermeasure” under the PREP Act. The act prevents anyone injured by a vaccine that was authorized during a public health emergency from suing the vaccine manufacturers or those who administer the vaccines.

However, there’s one exception — if the person who was injured can prove that the vaccine maker or the person who administered the vaccine engaged in “willful misconduct.”

Watts’ family alleges that the DOD engaged in “willful misconduct” by continuing to distribute only the stockpiled version of the EUA Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine — even after the FDA had granted full approval to another Pfizer vaccine, Comirnaty.

This led people like Watts to believe they were receiving a fully approved vaccine when they were really receiving the EUA Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

In November 2021, a federal judge rejected a DOD claim that the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine and the fully approved Comirnaty vaccine were “interchangeable.”

The previous dismissal sidestepped the PREP Act’s provisions, arguing that the PREP Act does not revoke the sovereign immunity of the government or federal agencies, but “explicitly preserves it.” It said the government can claim general immunity from the lawsuit.

Ray Flores, attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender:

“Among the PREP Act’s many eccentricities is that traditional rules of procedure do not apply. Since the order has been vacated, it is an admission that the Court did not follow PREP’s unique procedure.

“Now perhaps, a three-judge panel will engage in fruitful discussions of the case’s intricacies amongst themselves and will issue a more detailed and favorable ruling.”

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Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., is a senior reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master's from the University of Texas at Austin.

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Note: You may remember from our previous Substack posts on this case that it was volunteers at No College Mandates who contacted the Watts family and who had several early conversations with Mr Watts ultimately encouraging him speak with Mary Holland at Children's Health Defense and Ray Flores. George Jr.'s death should have never happened. It is one of the clearest examples of the crimes against humanity committed by our federal government when they plotted to coerce college students (any many others) to take these dangerous vaccines that they never needed. The Watts family is driven to seek justice for their beloved son as any one of us would be. May they succeed in this appeal and may the Watts family find peace.