Military COVID Vaccine Lawsuit: Settlements, Reinstatement, and Back Pay

The military COVID vaccine lawsuits ended without any court ordering damages for discharged troops. Federal judges in Texas and Ohio blocked the Pentagon from punishing service members whose religious exemption requests had been denied, the Supreme Court intervened once on a narrow deployment question, and Congress rescinded the mandate in January 2023 before the merits were fully decided. Two settlements paid a combined $3.3 million in attorneys’ fees but nothing to the service members themselves. Relief for the more than 8,000 troops who were involuntarily separated now runs through a 2025 executive order offering reinstatement and back pay, a Pentagon-wide discharge upgrade review, and a pending bill that would pay affected members without requiring them to rejoin.

The Mandate and the Discharges It Produced

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered all service members to begin full COVID-19 vaccination on August 24, 2021, one day after the FDA formally approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.¹ A November 2021 memorandum extended the requirement to the National Guard and Reserves.²

Roughly 18,500 service members requested religious exemptions across the branches, and approvals were nearly nonexistent. The Air Force received about 10,766 requests and approved only a handful. The Marine Corps approved two of about 3,350. The Navy approved virtually none of its 2,844.³ Each branch, meanwhile, granted hundreds of medical and administrative exemptions.⁴ That disparity became the core of the legal challenges.

By early 2023, more than 8,000 service members had been involuntarily separated. Over 4,000 received “general under honorable conditions” discharges rather than fully honorable ones, cutting off GI Bill eligibility.⁵ Another 60,000-plus Reserve and Guard members were barred from duty.⁶

The Navy SEALs Case and the 2024 Settlement

The flagship suit was filed on November 9, 2021, in the Northern District of Texas by First Liberty Institute on behalf of 35 members of Naval Special Warfare, including 26 SEALs. U.S. Navy SEALs 1–26 v. Biden (No. 4:21-cv-01236-O) went before Judge Reed O’Connor.⁷

Judge O’Connor granted a preliminary injunction on January 3, 2022. He called the Navy’s exemption review process “theater” and observed that the service “has not granted a religious exemption to any vaccine in recent memory.” He added: “There is no COVID-19 exception to the First Amendment. There is no military exclusion from our Constitution.”⁸

The Supreme Court partially intervened on March 25, 2022, allowing the Navy to factor vaccination status into deployment and assignment decisions. Justice Kavanaugh wrote that the service had an “extraordinarily compelling interest” in operational readiness. Justices Alito and Gorsuch dissented, saying the Navy had treated the plaintiffs “shabbily,” and Justice Thomas would have denied the stay outright.⁹ Judge O’Connor certified three classes on March 28, 2022, extending the injunction to all Navy members who had submitted religious accommodation requests.¹⁰

The Texas court approved a settlement in July 2024. The Navy agreed to review the personnel records of all class members and permanently remove adverse actions taken solely because of vaccine refusal, including separation proceedings, formal counseling, and nonjudicial punishment. Discharge records had to be corrected to remove any indication of misconduct and to reflect reenlistment eligibility. The Navy also committed to training commanders on religious accommodation requests. The government paid $1.5 million in attorneys’ fees to First Liberty Institute. No damages were paid to the sailors.¹¹¹²

The Air Force Cases: Doster and Poffenbarger

A parallel track ran through the Sixth Circuit. In Doster v. Kendall, 18 active and reserve Air Force members filed a class action in the Southern District of Ohio, alleging the Air Force’s blanket denial of religious exemptions violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The district court certified a class of roughly 10,000 and enjoined punishment. A Sixth Circuit panel affirmed in November 2022, holding that the exemption process failed RFRA’s “least restrictive means” test in light of the thousands of medical and administrative exemptions the Air Force had approved.¹³¹⁴ After Congress rescinded the mandate, the Supreme Court vacated the Sixth Circuit’s decision as moot and returned the case to the district court.¹⁵

A related case, Poffenbarger v. Kendall, was brought by an Air Force reservist seeking $4,346.16 in lost drill pay and 24 retirement points. The Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal in May 2025, ruling that RFRA does not waive the federal government’s sovereign immunity for money damages and that a reservist has no statutory entitlement to pay for drills he never attended.¹⁶¹⁷ In February 2026, the Supreme Court declined to hear either Doster v. Meink or Poffenbarger v. Meink, leaving the mootness rulings in place and closing off a judicial route to back pay damages.¹⁸

The Liberty Counsel Marines and Navy Settlement

Liberty Counsel litigated two more cases in tandem. Navy SEAL 1 v. Austin challenged the Navy mandate, and Colonel Financial Management Officer et al. v. Austin (No. 8:22-cv-01275, M.D. Fla.) was a class action on behalf of 3,736 Marines whose religious accommodation requests had been denied.¹⁹ Judge Steven Merryday in Tampa issued a class-wide preliminary injunction.²⁰

Both cases settled in October 2023. The Defense Department paid $1.8 million in attorneys’ fees to Liberty Counsel. No money went to the 48 named plaintiffs.²¹²²

How Congress Ended the Mandate

Section 525 of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 required the Secretary of Defense to rescind the vaccination mandate. President Biden signed the law on December 23, 2022, and Secretary Austin lifted the requirement on January 10, 2023.² Section 526 of the FY2024 NDAA then opened a path for discharged members to seek reinstatement. Eligible applicants had to have sought an exemption between August 24, 2021, and February 24, 2023, and had to apply within two years of separation.²³ Fewer than 80 of the more than 8,700 discharged troops returned under that initial framework.²⁴

Reinstatement and Back Pay Under Executive Order 14184

President Trump signed Executive Order 14184 on January 27, 2025, directing the Defense Department and Homeland Security to make reinstatement available to every service member discharged solely for refusing the vaccine, with restoration of rank, back pay, benefits, and bonus payments.²⁵²⁶

A February 2025 Pentagon memorandum set the conditions. Returning members must commit to at least four additional years of service, or two years for those close to retirement eligibility. They must pass a medical screening. And they must apply to their branch’s Board for Correction of Military Records within one year. Back pay is reduced by civilian earnings during separation, any VA disability payments received, and prior separation payouts.²⁷

Uptake has stayed low. As of May 2025, only 13 service members had actually rejoined, all in the Army. About 700 had expressed interest, and 97 had begun the formal records-review process. The Marine Corps drew the most interest at 418 but had advanced only five to evaluation.²⁴

Discharge Upgrades and GI Bill Restoration

Even for those who do not want to reenlist, the discharge characterization itself matters, because a general discharge blocks GI Bill eligibility. In December 2025, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth directed a proactive review across all branches to identify members separated solely for vaccine refusal and upgrade general discharges to fully honorable.⁵

The Air Force finished its review first, upgrading all 595 eligible cases from general to honorable.²⁸ The Coast Guard reinstated 56 members in February 2026.²⁹ Department-wide, nearly 900 veterans had received upgrades as of late 2025, with more than 3,000 cases still under review, and 899 veterans had been cleared for GI Bill eligibility through the upgrade process by November 2025.³⁰ The Marine Corps established a COVID Reinstatement Cell to help affected Marines through the correction process and is running automatic reviews for less-than-honorable discharges. Current guidance presumes that a discharge based solely on vaccine refusal, without other misconduct, is unjust and may warrant relief.³¹

Pending Back Pay Legislation

The reinstatement route pays back wages only to members willing to commit to years of additional service, and only after significant offsets. Representative Ryan Zinke introduced the COVID-19 Military Backpay Act of 2025 on August 1, 2025, with a Senate companion from Senator Tim Sheehy. The bill would authorize full back pay under the Military Pay Act and create an opt-in claims process, without requiring the affected member to return to service. As of mid-2026, the bill sits in the House Armed Services and Judiciary committees and has not advanced.³²

1
NCLA Legal. Firing Military Personnel for Refusing Covid Vaccine
2
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3
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4
Federal News Network. Yet Another Lawsuit Challenging Military’s Religious Accommodation Process for Vaccines
5
U.S. War Department. War Department Reevaluates Discharge Characterizations for COVID Vaccine Refusal
6
U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Ryan Zinke. Zinke Introduces Bill to Provide Backpay to Service Members Discharged Under Biden’s Mandate
7
CourtListener. US Navy SEALs 1-26 v. Biden
8
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9
SCOTUSblog. Court Allows Department of Defense to Reassign Unvaccinated Navy SEALs
10
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11
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12
Stars and Stripes. COVID Vaccine Lawsuit Navy SEAL
13
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14
Courthouse News Service. Sixth Circuit Keeps Air Force Vaccine Mandate on Hold
15
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16
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17
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18
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19
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20
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21
Military Times. DOD Settles COVID Vaccine Mandate Lawsuits for $1.8 Million
22
Military.com. Troops Suing Defense Department Over Vaccine Mandate Reach $1.8 Million Settlement
23
EANGUS. Reinstatement of Service Members Who Refused COVID-19 Vaccination
24
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25
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26
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27
MyNavy HR. Updated Guidance on COVID-19 Reinstatement
28
U.S. Air Force. DAF Completes Records Review for COVID-Related Separations
29
NGAUS. Vaccine Refusers Have Another Year to Rejoin
30
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Trump EO Reinstates GI Bill Benefits to Veterans Discharged for Refusing COVID Vaccine
31
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32
U.S. Congress. COVID-19 Military Backpay Act of 2025, H.R. 4871