The California Medical Board supervises the medical profession in California by issuing licenses, reviewing the quality of medical practice carried out by physicians and surgeons, approving medical- evaluation programs, and administering the continuing- medical-education program. As part of this responsibility, the Medical Board has a duty to “take action against any licensee who is charged with unprofessional conduct,” which includes gross negligence, repeated negligent acts, incompetence, dishonesty, and corruption.
California’s Business and Professions Code identifies a wide array of activities that the California legislature has determined constitute unprofessional conduct and can lead to professional discipline.
Frustrated by what it saw as an “amplification of misinformation and disinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic” by licensed medical providers who hold a high degree of public trust, the California Medical Association sponsored a bill aimed at ensuring medical professionals were “held accountable for the information they spread.”
In the Fall of 2022, after some revisions narrowing its scope, the legislature passed, and Governor Newsom signed into law, AB 2098. As codified, the law provided, in relevant part: (a) It shall constitute unprofessional conduct for a physician and surgeon to disseminate misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19, including false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.
In his signing statement, Newsom acknowledged that he was “concerned about the chilling effect” of legislating doctor-patient conversations. Nontheless he signed the law because it was “narrowly tailored to apply only to those egregious instances in which a licensee is acting with malicious intent or clearly deviating from the required standard of care while interacting directly with a patient under their care.”
The Liberty Justice Center filed McDonald v. Lawson in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, in October 2022 to challenge AB2098.
The district court denied a preliminary injunction, holding that AB 2098 was neither an unconstitutional restraint on speech nor impermissibly vague. Drs. McDonald and Barke timely appealed.
In Couris v. Lawson, No. 22-55069, Michael Couris, M.D. and Michael Fitzgibbons, M.D. separately sued various California officials and also sought an injunction, but the district court stayed their case pending the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in McDonald. Drs. Couris and Fitzgibbons timely appealed, and the Court of Appeals consolidated the two appeals.
In September 2023, the California Legislature passed Senate Bill 815, enacted as 2023 Cal. Stat., ch. 294 (SB 815), which repealed AB 2098. Governor Newsom signed SB 815 on September 30, 2023, and it took effect on January 1, 2024.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals requested supplemental briefing from the parties on the impact of SB 815 on this consolidated appeal. Relevant here, a “repeal, amendment, or expiration of legislation” gives rise to “a presumption that the action is moot, unless there is a reasonable expectation that the legislative body is likely to enact the same or substantially similar legislation in the future.” Bd. of Trs. of Glazing Health & Welfare Tr. v. Chambers, 941 F.3d 1195, 1197 (9th Cir. 2019) (en banc).
While a private party’s voluntary cessation of challenged conduct “ordinarily does not suffice to moot a case” because the defendant may be “free to return to his old ways” and resume the conduct, see Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Env’t Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 174, 189 (2000) (citation omitted), the voluntary cessation of challenged conduct by government officials ‘must be treated with more solicitude.
Plaintiffs argue that this appeal is not moot because they face the possibility of being disciplined for violations that occurred while AB 2098 was in effect. If true, this could defeat a finding of mootness.
As part of California’s response addressing the impact of SB 815, the Executive Director of the Medical Board stated under penalty of perjury that, due to the legislative repeal, the Medical Board’s “employees and agents, including investigators . . . have been instructed not to enforce [AB 2098]” through the repeal effective date and that after AB 2098 is no longer in effect, “the Medical Board will have no legal authority to enforce [AB 2098].”
The Executive Director’s sworn statement was made in the context of litigation, and, consequently, the Medical Board may be judicially estopped from assuming a contradictory position on enforcement or pursuing legal action against Plaintiffs at a later date.
Thus the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the judgments and remanded both cases with instructions to dismiss the cases as moot in the published case of McDonald et. al. v. Lawson et. al. -22-56220 (February, 2024)