Opinion ID: 6944924
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: First Amendment and RFRA Claims

Text: The district court found that Dr. William Petty, Maryville Nursing Home, Sister Geraldine Bernards as Maryville Nursing Home’s administrator, Willows Home, and Fritz and June Beck as the owners of Willows Home all had standing to assert that they will be forced to carry out certain actions under Measure 16 in violation of their rights under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. These plaintiffs assert two different types of injuries: First, all five of these plaintiffs assert that Measure 16 will force them to participate in the prescription of life-ending medication, either by being required to transfer the medical records of a patient who is seeking life-ending medication to another physician (Measure 16, § 4.01(4)), by being required to advise a patient of the option of Measure 16’s procedures (id. § 8.01(2)), or (in the case of the residential care facilities) by being required to appoint a witness to a patient’s written request for life-ending medication (id. § 2.02(4)). 6 Second, the residential care facilities and their administrators assert that Measure 16 will prevent them from excluding physicians who wish to prescribe life-ending medication to the facilities’ residents. See id. § 4.01(2). These asserted injuries are appropriately analyzed separately-
Plaintiffs assert that Measure 16 violates their First Amendment and RFRA rights by forcing them to participate in a patient’s suicide in three separate ways. Assuming (without deciding) that Measure 16 does in fact require them to perform the asserted acts, their claim suffers from both standing and ripeness defects. Plaintiffs lack standing to bring this claim because Measure 16 does not provide for any penalty, criminal or otherwise, for a violation of the challenged provisions. See Measure 16 § 4.02 (providing criminal penalties only for forging a request and coercing a patient to make a request for life-ending medication). Thus, while an asserted injury would probably be sufficiently “imminent” for purposes of standing, see Babbitt v. United Farm Workers National Union, 442 U.S. 289, 298-99, 99 S.Ct. 2301, 2308-09, 60 L.Ed.2d 895 (1979) (holding that a plaintiff does not have to risk arrest or prosecution in order to have standing to challenge the constitutionality of a criminal statute), Plaintiffs have failed to allege a “concrete and particularized” injury in the first instance. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. at 2136 (stating that injury must be “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent”). Without such an injury, Plaintiffs lack standing. For the same reason, this claim is not ripe. While the issues may be fit for judicial consideration because they are predominately legal ones that do not depend on a particular factual context, see Newcomb, 82 F.3d at 1434 (stating that “[l]egal questions that require little factual development are more likely to be ripe”), this claim is not ripe because Plaintiffs have not identified any hardship that would befall them if their claims were not considered at this time. See Toilet Goods Ass'n v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 158, 165, 87 S.Ct. 1520, 1525, 18 L.Ed.2d 697 (1967) (dismissing claim on ripeness grounds because noncompliance with the challenged regulation “would at most lead only to a suspension of certification services to the particular party, a determination that can then be promptly challenged through an administrative procedure, which in turn is reviewable by a court”) (footnote omitted). Noncomplianee with the allegedly offending provisions of Measure 16 would lead, at worst, to a civil enforcement action, at which time the plaintiff doctors and health care organizations could more appropriately challenge the provisions’ validity.
The residential care facilities and their administrators also assert that Measure 16 will prevent them from excluding physicians who wish to prescribe life-ending medication to the facilities’ residents, in violation of their rights to freedom of association and freedom of religion. Because these plaintiffs have not alleged that there are in fact any doctors at their facilities who will participate in Measure 16’s procedures, there is no “injury in fact” upon which to base standing.