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The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Gonzaga and NBA legend John Stockton in his lawsuit against the Washington Medical Commission and the Washington State Office of the Attorney General over sanctions imposed on doctors for COVID-19-related misinformation.
The case was among dozens the court declined to take up, offering no explanation for its decision, the Spokesman-Review reported on Tuesday.
John Stockton, a critic of pandemic-era policies and vaccine mandates, filed the lawsuit in 2024 alongside several physicians. The complaint argued that rules in place during the pandemic restricted doctors from speaking out against what it described as the “mainstream” COVID-19 narrative. The doctors involved had faced state discipline for unprofessional conduct after publishing opinion pieces and blog posts questioning the effectiveness of COVID-19 testing and vaccines and promoting alternative treatments.
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The lawsuit contended that the disciplinary actions violated the physicians’ First Amendment rights and were unconstitutionally vague, the report said.
One of the plaintiffs, retired ophthalmologist Richard Eggleston, faced state sanctions after writing an opinion piece published in the Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune that was reported by a reader. Following an investigation, Eggleston was charged with unprofessional conduct in August 2022.
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Another plaintiff, Thomas Siler, was also charged with unprofessional conduct after the Washington Medical Commission received complaints about COVID-related content he had posted on his blog, said the Spokesman-Review.
Lawyers for the Washington State Office of the Attorney General last month asked that the case be dismissed, arguing that recent state court rulings had rendered the appeal moot.
In April, the Washington Supreme Court declined to review a separate case in which the Washington Court of Appeals ruled that the First Amendment bars the Washington Medical Commission from disciplining doctors over COVID-19 treatment and prevention information published online. The decision not to take the case allowed that ruling to stand.
Following that outcome, the commission withdrew statements of charges against both Siler and Eggleston.
In an April 13 letter to the U.S. Supreme Court, an attorney for the state argued that the combination of the Washington Supreme Court’s action and the commission’s decision to drop the charges made the federal lawsuit unnecessary, the outlet reported.
“Petitioners Eggleston and Siler brought this suit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to terminate the Commission’s ongoing proceedings against them,” Peter B. Gonick, a deputy solicitor general, wrote. “They have now received that relief. Because they have now obtained the relief they sought, there is no further controversy for this Court to adjudicate.”
Mike Faulk, a spokesperson for Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown, said in a statement Monday that the “district court and Ninth Circuit applied decades of clear precedent in dismissing this lawsuit.”
“It’s not surprising the Supreme Court saw no need to review these obviously correct judgments,” Faulk said.
In response, a lawyer representing Stockton argued that the case should proceed, as its impacts extended beyond just the two sanctioned doctors.
“The constitutional interest at stake goes beyond the liberty of the speaker,” attorney Richard Jaffe wrote on April 14. “It is the right of every citizen to hear information and to think for herself, even when the government does not agree with the information and opinions conveyed.”
Meanwhile, the nation’s highest court will allow the federal government to freeze more than $4 billion in foreign aid payments that President Trump tried to cancel last month using a rare “pocket rescission.”
The justices ruled 6-3 to grant the Trump administration’s emergency appeal, which stopped a lower court’s order to release the funds that had already been set aside.
A spokesperson for the White House Office of Management and Budget said, “This is a huge win for restoring the President’s power to carry out his policies. Left-wing groups can no longer take over the president’s agenda.”
