A group of parents in New Hampshire is suing three school districts for making children wear masks.
This is the third lawsuit of its kind filed by Attorney Robert Fojo, who says making kids wear face coverings at this point in the pandemic is “child abuse.”
Christopher Grout’s nine-year-old son goes to Londonderry South, where he’s had to wear a mask since the coronavirus pandemic started.
“I don’t think it’s okay for people to tell another person what they have to do medically,” Grout said during an interview Thursday. “I think that’s tyranny, quite frankly.”
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Grout is one of 17 plaintiffs in a recently filed lawsuit alleging that the Londonderry, Epping, and Timberlane school districts are violating a New Hampshire statute that prohibits child restraints.
“It even includes placing any kind of covering on a child’s face, any kind of material,” explained Fojo.
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The Bedford, New Hampshire, attorney has filed two other similar lawsuits, representing a total of 23 families, including his own.
“Face masks on children, particularly when the rest of the state is open and this far removed from the State of Emergency, is asinine,” Fojo said. “It’s a form of child abuse.”
He and the other plaintiffs don’t believe that masks are effective.
“Children were never at risk with this virus,” Fojo said.
The lawsuit also claims that masks do more harm than good both physically and emotionally.
“When a child leaves their mask at home or is fidgeting with it and is reprimanded by a teacher, it causes a lot of stress,” Fojo said.
The case will be heard at the beginning of September.
Fojo says because all the districts named in the suit are planning to enforce a mask mandate this upcoming year, he’s also filed an injunction, asking a judge to order schools to make masks optional immediately.
The plaintiffs say if any of the school districts vote to make masks optional in the fall, they’d be happy to drop the lawsuit.
NBC10 Boston has reached out to all three school districts for comment, but we haven’t heard back.
