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Chief U.S. District Judge John Gerrard granted Noah’s Ark Processors' motion to dismiss the lawsuit because the plaintiffs don't currently work there.

Three of the four are former employees who quit last year and have kept in touch with workers at the Hastings plant. The fourth is a pediatric doctor there who treats the children of plant workers and people with COVID-19.

"While the court does not question their sincere concern for the well-being of Noah's Ark employees, the court finds that they lack standing to assert the claims they have alleged," Gerrard wrote in a 10-page order last week.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the federal lawsuit in November against Noah’s Ark Processors, alleging the plant wasn't taking needed precautions to protect its workforce and the community at large. 

Plaintiffs said plant managers failed to spread workers out to limit the spread of the virus, failed to promptly replace workers’ masks when they became soiled with blood and sweat and pressured people to continue working even when they were sick and showing symptoms of COVID-19.

In his order March 1, the judge said plaintiffs in federal court must be able to show that they personally suffered an injury traceable to the defendant's conduct. 

In this case, Gerrard said, the gist of the plaintiffs' claims is that there "could be another COVID-19 outbreak at Noah's Ark, and that could cause widespread disease in the community in which they live, and that could endanger them and affect the community."

He said their predictions of what could happen fall short of describing an imminent injury. And they can only speculate whether an outbreak in the community could be tied to the plant or some other cause.

Gerrard said it would be different if the plaintiffs were current employees. Then, their risk of COVID-19 might be fairly traceable to their workplace.

"In this case, of course, the people directly put at risk by Noah's Ark's alleged misconduct are the people who work there now, and the plaintiffs cannot assert their claims for them," he wrote.

The ACLU had argued people who currently work at the plant would face retaliation if they sued so others should be allowed to raise the claims on their behalf.

Gerrard said the attorneys gave no explanation why current employees couldn't use pseudonyms, like the three former employees in the suit had. And he dismissed the lawsuit. 

The company employs between 300 and 400 workers at the plant.

Nationwide, the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents roughly 80% of the nation’s beef and pork workers and 33% of its poultry workers, estimates that at least 22,000 meatpacking workers have been infected or exposed, and 132 have died of COVID-19.

THE SCENE IN LINCOLN DURING THE PANDEMIC: