PAUL ISAACSON, ET AL V. KRISTIN MAYES, ET AL, No. 23-15234 (9th Cir. 2023)
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Plaintiffs are individual physicians based in Arizona, joined by several Arizona medical and advocacy groups. The named Defendants are Arizona Attorney General Kristin Mayes, all Arizona County Attorneys, and various state enforcement agencies. The Attorney General declined to defend this lawsuit, and the district court allowed Warren Petersen, President of the Arizona Senate, and Ben Toma, Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, to intervene. This suit by Arizona physicians, medical associations, and advocacy groups claims that an Arizona law criminalizing the performance of certain abortions is unconstitutionally vague. The district court denied a preliminary injunction, finding that Plaintiffs lacked standing.
The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded. The panel held that the physician plaintiffs had demonstrated both actual and imminent injuries sufficient for standing. Plaintiffs suffered an actual injury—economic losses— because they lost money by complying with the laws, which forbade them from providing medical services they would otherwise provide, and these economic losses were fairly traceable to the statute. A favorable decision would relieve plaintiffs of compliance with the laws and restore the revenue generated by the prohibited procedures. Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged two imminent future injuries that affected interests protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments: (1) a liberty interest that was imperiled because violating the statute could result in imprisonment; and (2) a property interest that was threatened because a statutory violation could result in revocation of plaintiffs’ licenses, loss of revenue, and monetary damages. Finally, plaintiffs satisfied the causation and redressability requirements with respect to their imminent future injury.
Court Description: Abortion/Standing. The panel reversed the district court’s denial, for lack of standing, of plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction in an action alleging that an Arizona law criminalizing the performance of certain abortions is unconstitutionally vague, and remanded.
Arizona’s Reason Regulations criminalize the performance of abortions sought solely because of genetic abnormalities in the fetus or embryo. Plaintiffs, including individual physicians based in Arizona, allege they are over- complying with the laws because it is unclear what conduct falls within the laws’ grasp. Following a remand by the Supreme Court, the district court denied plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, finding that they lacked standing in light of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 142 S. Ct. 2228 (2022), which overruled Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion.
The panel held that the physician plaintiffs had demonstrated both actual and imminent injuries sufficient for standing.
Plaintiffs suffered an actual injury—economic losses— because they lost money by complying with the laws, which forbade them from providing medical services they would otherwise provide, and these economic losses were fairly traceable to the statute. A favorable decision would relieve plaintiffs of compliance with the laws and restore the revenue generated by the prohibited procedures.
Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged two imminent future injuries that affected interests protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments: (1) a liberty interest that was imperiled because violating the statute could result in imprisonment; and (2) a property interest that was threatened because a statutory violation could result in revocation of plaintiffs’ licenses, loss of revenue, and monetary damages. Plaintiffs adequately demonstrated that their conduct was proscribed by statute, that there was a credible threat of prosecution given that that at least one county attorney intended to enforce restrictive abortion laws and that there was a credible threat of civil enforcement. Finally, plaintiffs satisfied the causation and redressability requirements with respect to their imminent future injury.
The panel expressed no opinion on the merits of plaintiffs’ claims.
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