Lisa Hill Leonard, et al. v. The Alabama State Board of Pharmacy, et al., No. 22-11124 (11th Cir. 2023)
Annotate this Case
Based in Auburn, Alabama, Plaintiff and her pharmacy were one of the thousands of businesses that answered the call to provide Covid-19 tests to the public. However, the Alabama Board of Pharmacy (the Board) concluded that Plaintiff’s administration of these tests fell short of the medical safety standards required under Alabama law. When the Board instituted an administrative enforcement proceeding against Plaintiff, she sought to avail herself of the legal immunity provided by the Secretary’s PREP Act Declaration. Plaintiff filed a federal suit, seeking to enjoin the Board from even considering the charges against her. The district court exercised its discretion to abstain under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971) and declined to intervene in the Board’s proceedings.
The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision to abstain under Younger. The court concluded that Plaintiff has not established that she lacks an adequate opportunity to present her federal claims to the Alabama Board of Pharmacy or an adequate opportunity to obtain judicial review of her claims in Alabama’s courts, and so Younger abstention is warranted. The court wrote that it did not decide today whether Plaintiff is immune from the Board’s charges or if they are, in fact, preempted by the PREP Act. All the court concluded is that this is not one of the “extraordinary circumstances” that would justify federal intervention in a state proceeding that is adequate to hear Plaintiff’s claims.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.