Federal Judge Rules DOJ Didn’t Commit Fraud in Autism Case, Father Plans to Appeal

A federal judge has ruled against the father of an autistic son who alleged that lawyers representing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) misrepresented and concealed evidence showing that vaccines can cause autism, which resulted in his son being denied compensation for his injury.

Rolf Hazlehurst, who filed a motion in April 2024 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, alleged that U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers representing HHS repeatedly defrauded the judicial system.

But in a ruling filed last month and released to the public on Thursday, Judge Edward H. Meyers concluded that Hazlehurst didn’t meet the high bar of evidence to prove fraud on the court.

However, Meyers did make it clear in his decision that the question before the Court of Federal Claims was not whether vaccines cause autism, but only whether the DOJ committed a “fraud on the court” by concealing the evidence.

The ruling dealt a blow to the thousands of families who filed petitions with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) alleging vaccines caused their children to develop autism.

In 2002, the VICP consolidated 5,000-plus claims into the Omnibus Autism Proceeding (OAP). It later selected six test cases, including that of Hazlehurst’s son, Yates, as the basis for determining the outcome of all of the remaining claims.

Hazlehurst alleges that the OAP declined his petition for compensation because the DOJ concealed evidence, a fact that didn’t come to light until 2018.

Hazlehurst said he plans to appeal the most recent Federal Claims decision. “Winning an appeal is difficult,” he said, “because you have to show the court’s ruling was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, or not in accordance with the law. But that is basically what happened here.”

Judge ‘missed many critical facts’

Hazlehurst told The Defender that rather than considering all the arguments and evidence he presented during the proceedings, Meyers only narrowly addressed his claims.

“The Court of Federal Claims decision is not an accurate reflection of the arguments and evidence I presented to the court,” Hazlehurst said. “The court basically adopts the DOJ’s response letter. That letter is an incredibly dishonest and fraudulent cover-up.”

Unlike regular court hearings, vaccine lawsuits take place within the Vaccine Court under the VICP, which was established by the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.

“The Vaccine Act replaces the American legal system with a Special Master,” Hazlehurst said. “Almost all documents, evidence and legal proceedings under the Vaccine Act are off limits to the public and the media. The only window into what occurs in the VICP is the special masters and the Court of Federal Claims decisions.”

He expressed frustration that the proceedings are kept secret. The public can never access the complaint, the response or the exhibits, or other evidence presented. The only public documents associated with the proceedings are the decisions issued by the judge. And even that is confusing if one can’t access the exhibits, Hazlehurst said.

“The American people should be allowed to see the motion and evidence I filed,” Hazlehurst said. “Much of the evidence has never been seen by the public. I’m certain the DOJ will fight tooth and nail to prevent the people from ever seeing the documents that prove the government conceded vaccine injury causes autism and perpetrated fraud upon the courts and the American people.”

Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense, which sponsored Hazlehurst v. HHS, said:

“Judge Meyer’s decision in this case is disappointing but not unexpected. He essentially repeated the holdings from the Omnibus Autism Proceeding and dismissed the idea that the DOJ perpetrated fraud on the courts. Yet he missed many critical facts and failed to look beyond the program’s past decisions.

“When the reckoning on autism comes, and it will, the country will look back at the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and decisions like this one with shame.”

‘A shocking cover-up’

Yates regressed into autism after being vaccinated as an infant. In the early 2000s, his family sought compensation through VICP.

After his case was consolidated into the OAP, the OAP used his and the other test cases to examine claims of whether vaccines could cause autism, and if so, under what conditions.

Unbeknownst at the time to the parents filing the claims and the VICP special masters, the DOJ’s star expert medical witness, Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, informed DOJ attorneys during the ongoing omnibus proceedings that he had modified his original opinion and determined that, in some cases, vaccines can and do cause autism.

In what Hazlehurst alleges was “a shocking cover-up,” instead of allowing Zimmerman to share his revised opinion, the DOJ attorneys relieved Zimmerman of his duties as a witness.

However, they continued to use excerpts from his unamended written opinion to make their case that vaccines did not cause autism — misrepresenting his position and committing “fraud on the court,” he alleged.

Hazlehurst alleged that the DOJ’s first act of fraud snowballed into a scheme of deception with far-reaching implications in which DOJ attorneys repeatedly misrepresented Zimmerman’s opinion and concealed other evidence that emerged during the test case hearings in the OAP in subsequent cases before multiple courts — all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Related articles in The Defender

• Kids, Vaccines and Autism: Will a New Legal Strategy End the Decades-long Battle for Truth and Justice?
• Father’s 20-Year Battle on Behalf of Vaccine-Injured Son Exposes Travesty of Liability-Free Vaccines
• ‘Shocking Cover-up’: DOJ Lawyers Committed Fraud in Vaccine Injury Case, CHD Attorney Alleges in Motion Filed Today