We fight in Court to protect the right of patients to receive the medical care they are entitled to. This includes opposing claims by a pharmacy that it could refuse to provide women with emergency contraception and defending a public university’s requirement that students in its graduate clinic program must treat all patients.

Pharmacy Refusal Litigation

We filed a pair of briefs to the federal appeals court in Stormans v. Wiesman, opposing a pharmacy’s lawsuit seeking a religious exemption to a Washington state law requiring pharmacies to dispense all lawfully prescribed drugs, including contraception and emergency contraception. Because time is of the essence for patients who need emergency contraception, allowing pharmacies to withhold these drugs harms women.

Our First Brief To Court Of Appeals (March 11, 2008) 

The Court Of Appeals Decision Rejecting Preliminary Challenge To Washington Prescription Drug Access Law (October 28, 2009)

Our Second Brief To The Court Of Appeals (September 4, 2012) 

The Court Of Appeals Decision Rejecting Challenge To Washington Prescription Drug Access Law A Second Time (July 23, 2015)

Mental Health Counseling Student Refusal Litigation

We filed a brief in the Court of Appeals in Ward v. Polite. In that case, a graduate student was expelled after she refused to treat a gay client. The student sued, claiming that she had a First Amendment right to pick and choose her clients and to refuse to provide relationship counseling to any clients having premarital sex. We argued that the First Amendment does not require that students in professional training programs be allowed to reject clients or to refuse to fulfill curricular requirements.

Although the Court of Appeals ruled that the case should go to trial, the court made clear that public universities have the discretion to require students to treat a broad range of clients as part of professional training programs. The plaintiff later settled the case for a modest sum and the university was not required to reinstate her.

Our Brief To The Court Of Appeals (February 11, 2011)

The Court Of Appeals Decision, Sending The Case To Trial (January 28, 2012)