Login
A federal judge has temporarily barred California medical regulators from investigating or disciplining three physicians based on the viewpoints they share with their patients about COVID-19.
In an order signed Wednesday, Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb granted a renewed motion for a preliminary injunction in favor of Dr. Pierre Kory, Dr. Le Trinh Hoang and Dr. Brian Tyson.
The injunction applies only to those three doctors. It remains in effect pending the outcome of a lawsuit the doctors filed in January 2024 against California’s attorney general and two state medical boards. Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is funding the lawsuit.
“While the order technically only applies to our three doctor plaintiffs, it puts the boards on notice that a federal judge has found their Covid misinformation policy unconstitutional under the First Amendment,” wrote attorney Rick Jaffe, who represents the doctors in the case. “Every investigator and every board member now knows how this judge sees it.”
CHD CEO Mary Holland called the preliminary injunction a victory for the physicians.
“Fantastic news that doctors can still be doctors and not just mouthpieces for the state,” she said. “It verges on the absurd that Dr. Kory had to go to the U.S. Supreme Court and back to the California district court to establish that he — not the state — can be a doctor to his patients. But there it is.”
Writing today on Substack, Kory said, “Free speech prevailed. We do not have to parrot pharma-government nonsense to keep our licenses. That principle was worth every day of this fight.”
Ruling doesn’t resolve underlying lawsuit
Under the order, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Medical Board of California Executive Director Reji Varghese, Osteopathic Medical Board of California Executive Director Erika Calderon and others acting on their behalf are prohibited from investigating, prosecuting, accusing or sanctioning the three physicians based on “the viewpoint of the information, recommendations, or advice they give a patient about COVID-19,” even if that information contradicts the positions of public health authorities.
The judge said regulators may not characterize a physician’s refusal to communicate the government’s position on disputed COVID-19 issues as either an informed consent violation or a departure from the applicable standard of care.
However, Shubb’s order makes clear that the injunction does not prevent state medical boards from pursuing other disciplinary action against the physicians. This includes failures to obtain informed consent regarding material risks or reasonable treatment alternatives, or other conduct that can be regulated independently of their views on COVID-19.
The ruling does not resolve the underlying lawsuit, which will continue as the court considers the merits of the physicians’ claims.
Aaron Bone, chief of Legislative and Public Affairs at the Medical Board of California, told The Defender that the board “has no comment on this matter.”
Requests for comment sent to the offices of Bonta and Calderon by The Defender went unanswered.
Regulators threatened doctors even after California repealed COVID ‘misinformation’ law
Kory v. Bonta followed Hoang v. Bonta, another lawsuit that challenged California Assembly Bill No. 2098 (AB 2098).
The law allowed the Medical Board of California to discipline doctors who disseminate “misinformation” about COVID-19 for engaging in unprofessional conduct.
Hoang v. Bonta resulted in a successful injunction blocking AB 2098, but the law was later repealed.
“In 2022, California passed AB 2098, a law that made it professional misconduct for a physician to give a patient Covid advice that departed from the government’s position,” Kory wrote.
He added:
“The penalty would have been our licenses, which is to say our careers, our livelihoods, and our ability to care for the people who came to us precisely because we would tell them the truth as we saw it.
“The state took the most personal conversation in medicine, the one between a doctor and a frightened patient, and tried to put its own words in our mouths, with our licenses held as collateral to make sure we complied. We sued.”
The Kory v. Bonta suit alleges that the Medical Board of California continues to target COVID-19 “misinformation” under its general “standard of care” authority and continues to threaten physicians with disciplinary proceedings — even though AB 2098 was repealed.
Ob Nov. 27, 2024, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed in their effort to stop the medical boards from enforcing California Business and Professions Code Section 2234(c).
The lawsuit argued that the code could be used to punish physicians for expressing views about COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. The appeals court disagreed, finding that the statute regulates medical practice — not speech.
The law “provides for enforcement of the standard of care,” the panel wrote, and “does not purport to regulate speech unrelated to treating patients or require any particular communication.”
According to the 9th Circuit ruling, the only COVID-19-related disciplinary case in the record involved a physician who advised a patient to use veterinary ivermectin. That case ended with the physician voluntarily surrendering her medical license.
The Defender is 100% reader-supported. No corporate sponsors. No paywalls. Our writers and editors rely on you to fund stories like this that mainstream media won’t write. 
This article was funded by critical thinkers like you.
U.S. Circuit Judge Consuelo M. Callahan agreed with the outcome but disagreed with the majority’s reasoning on standing.
Callahan said she believed the plaintiffs “have standing to bring an as-applied challenge,” but agreed they “have not established a likelihood of success on the merits at this stage of the proceedings.”
On Feb. 25, 2025, attorneys for the doctors asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the case. The case was distributed for conference in June 2025 and again in April 2026.
On April 20, the Supreme Court denied the petition for certiorari, leaving the lower court’s ruling in place.
On June 29, Jaffe filed a renewed motion with the lower court for the preliminary injunction.
A final decision in the case is expected within weeks.
Related articles in The Defender
- Supreme Court Rejects Appeal in COVID ‘Misinformation’ Case, but Doctors Say They Still Won
- Doctors File First Lawsuit Challenging California Law That Seeks to Punish Physicians for COVID ‘Misinformation’
- Doctors, CHD Ask Supreme Court to Review Medical Free Speech Case
- Doctors, Children’s Health Defense to Take Censorship Case to U.S. Supreme Court After Appeals Loss
