Shelby Co ex-vaccine chief loses legal bid to clear her name after botched rollout

The late Rep. Barbara Cooper of Memphis gets vaccinated against COVID-19 in February 2021. (Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht)

The former leader of Shelby County's COVID-19 vaccine rollout has lost a legal bid to declare she was wrongly blamed for allowing hundreds of doses to expire during the pandemic.

Judy Martin, Shelby County's former chief of nursing and immunizations lost her job amid public fallout over the lost doses in early 2022.

Martin had reported 1,000 expired doses she discovered during an inventory. With even more doses set to go bad, she loaded hundreds of vaccines into her car to take to a local prison. But a snowstorm in Memphis scuttled those plans. She left 700 doses in the car and told nobody, legal filings said.

When news broke that Shelby County had allowed even more doses to expire than initially reported, Martin retired in order to avoid being fired.

"I learned that the information regarding the level of vaccine that expired in Shelby County was not accurate," Mayor Lee Harris soon tweeted. "We have terminated the site manager who managed the relationship with the pharmacy and allegedly provided the initial false information."

Martin sued the county alleging the tweet was defamatory and asserted her right to a "name-clearing hearing." A federal court in Memphis dismissed those claims, siding with the county.

On Tuesday the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals again sided with the county in a ruling that concluded Martin had not suffered any harm from the mayor's tweet. The ruling noted Martin had received community support amid the controversy, the nursing board took no disciplinary action against her and that she was able to land quickly in another job.

"Getting fired is unpleasant," the ruling said. "And having that termination broadcast is even more so. But the Constitution of the United States says little about lost jobs and nothing about this one."

Sixth Circuit Martin