The rollout of the COVID vaccine is already spawning a litany of questions, both from a health and legal standpoint.

"There have been cases, particularly under the flu vaccine...involving all kinds of employers, that case law exists," says Ira Mirkin, employment rights attorney with Green, Haines and Sgambati. He believes employers will be faced with a set of circumstances that will all but force them to require their workers get the shot.

"I would find it very surprising if the healthcare industry around here doesn't require it, they certainly will," Mirkin says. "Retail (establishments) where we have people that are in constant contact with the public...food service would certainly be one."

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has deemed COVID as a direct health threat, which gives employers more leeway to enact a vaccine mandate. But that standard likely wouldn't apply to people who work remotely or from home. Mirkin points out that while there's no legal precedent for cases involving a COVID vaccine, there are two probable exceptions to a vaccine mandate that employers will have to be very careful of in terms of liabilities.

People who have religious objections to vaccinations and those with underlying conditions that would qualify as disabilities that maybe are medically contraindicated," he says, adding that the most similar case law we could reference dates back roughly a decade to the H-1-N-1 pandemic and a vaccine created then.