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Basketball legend John Stockton, three retired Washington physicians and Children’s Health Defense (CHD) today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a federal appeals court’s dismissal of their lawsuit challenging the state medical board’s policy of sanctioning physicians for publicly questioning the mainstream COVID-19 narrative.
Stockton v. Brown — formerly Stockton v. Ferguson — filed last year, alleges the Washington Medical Commission (WMC) COVID-19 “misinformation” policies violated physicians’ free speech rights, and the public’s right to hear dissenting information about the pandemic and unconventional treatments, including ivermectin.
In May 2024, a federal court dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the First Amendment doesn’t protect licensed physicians’ public speech because it is part of medical conduct.
“For 80 years, every justice and judge to consider the question has recognized that the First Amendment robustly protects the rights of professionals to speak to the public as soapbox speakers,” the petition to the Supreme Court states.
Plaintiffs include: Dr. Richard Eggleston and Dr. Thomas T. Siler, who face disciplinary charges from the WMC for their “soapbox” speech; Dr. Daniel Moynihan, who alleges the WMC’s threats chilled his speech on pandemic-related topics; and Stockton and CHD, who argue the WMC’s actions violated their constitutional right to hear such speech.
Former Washington attorney general and current governor, Robert Ferguson, and the WMC’s executive director are named as defendants.
State ‘has no legitimate interest’ in sanctioning its licensees’ public speech.
In its May 2024 dismissal, the court also cited other legal threshold issues, including “ripeness” — referring to whether a lawsuit’s facts are ready for judicial resolution, and “abstention,” a principle based on a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Younger v. Harris, where a court refrains from interfering with pending state court proceedings.
In November 2024 and again in January, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected emergency applications for a stay.
In September, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, but did not consider the First Amendment questions in the case.
One day before the 9th Circuit decision, the Washington appellate court ruled that the WMC’s COVID-19 misinformation policy violates the First Amendment because the state of Washington has no legitimate interest in sanctioning its licensees’ public, or “soapbox,” speech.
According to Rick Jaffe, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Stockton case, the appellate court’s decision “makes the 9th Circuit’s decision completely obsolete,” as it “means that the deference the 9th Circuit showed the WMC’s ongoing prosecution of Drs. Eggleston and Siler was wrong as a matter of law.”
The plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief against all of the WMC’s prosecutions for its soapbox speech protections.
State court ruling: WMC’s misinformation policy unconstitutional
The Stockton v. Brown case was triggered by a September 2021 WMC position statement advising doctors that “Physicians and Physician Assistants, who generate and spread COVID-19 misinformation, or disinformation, erode the public trust in the medical profession and endanger patients.”
The commission published the statement, which served as the basis for the WMC’s subsequent disciplinary actions against physicians, after the Federation of State Medical Boards issued a press release in July 2021 recommending that state medical boards sanction physicians for disseminating “COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.”
The WMC used the statement to launch disciplinary actions against Eggleston and Siler — and against other doctors, including Dr. Richard Wilkinson, a physician who published blog posts questioning the establishment COVID-19 narrative and defied official guidance by prescribing ivermectin to patients.
The WMC found Wilkinson guilty of breach of practice guidelines and violating its medical misinformation policies. Wilkinson in turn sued the WMC, leading to September’s ruling by the Washington Court of Appeals.
Jaffe said the ruling helps form the basis of today’s petition to the Supreme Court in Stockton v. Brown.
“There is now controlling authority in Washington that the commission’s COVID misinformation policy is unconstitutional,” Jaffe said. “An unconstitutional policy cannot serve an important state interest.”
Informed consent impossible without First Amendment right to listen
Stockton v. Brown also alleges that the WMC’s “misinformation” policy denied CHD and Stockton, the host of “The Ultimate Assist” podcast that often questions mainstream health narratives, their constitutionally protected right to hear information that the WMC deemed “misinformation” or “disinformation.”
“People often don’t know that the listener component is protected speech, but it is vital to ensure an informed citizenry — and it has been negatively and devastatingly impacted in recent years,” said CHD General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg.
Rosenberg said that patients cannot provide informed consent if the right to listen isn’t protected.
“CHD has standing in this case to assert its First Amendment right as a listener,” Rosenberg said. “If you cannot access a variety of viewpoints, making informed decisions — including exercising informed consent — is impossible.”
Jaffe and Rosenberg said the right to listen is tied to the right to disseminate information.
“One of the main reasons I decided to make John Stockton the lead plaintiff was to emphasize from the get-go the importance of the right to listen or hear protected speech, which has heretofore been like the stepchild in most free speech cases,” Jaffe said.
“We want to share with our members and followers information that has been vetted and researched, offering a variety of perspectives and uncovering the truth. We need a free flow of information to us in order to do that,” Rosenberg said.
CHD supporting lawsuits challenging censorship of medical speech
Hoang v. Bonta was a CHD-supported lawsuit that challenged California Assembly Bill No. 2098 (AB 2098), a law allowing the Medical Board of California to discipline doctors who disseminate “misinformation” about COVID-19 for engaging in unprofessional conduct that led to an injunction blocking AB 2098. The law was later repealed.
Filed last year, Kory v. Bonta is a follow-up to that successful challenge, which alleges that despite the repeal of AB 2098, the Medical Board of California continues to target COVID-19 “misinformation” under its general “standard of care” authority and is threatening physicians with disciplinary proceedings.
In May, the plaintiffs in Kory v. Bonta filed a reply brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, after lower courts rejected the plaintiffs’ petition for an injunction against the Medical Board of California. That case remains pending before the Supreme Court.
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Pending Supreme Court cases address ‘all three kinds of speech’
The Stockton v. Brown appeal also cites Chiles v. Salazar, a lawsuit that also addresses questions about professional speech rights — specifically, whether a Colorado law that censors some private client-counselor conversations violates the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court heard arguments in Chiles v. Salazar last month. A ruling is pending.
Jaffe, who also represents plaintiffs in Kory v. Bonta, said the cases cover three kinds of speech — professional speech, speech to patients which is not treatment, and physicians’ speech to the public at large.
According to Jaffe, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, expected by spring 2026, may directly affect the other two cases.
“I believe the court wants to and will address all three kinds of speech — if not at one time, when it decides Chiles, then after Chiles via a consolidated case of Kory and Stockton,” Jaffe said.
Jaffe said the Stockton v. Brown and Kory v. Bonta cases have finally brought the issue of alleged COVID-19 misinformation to the Supreme Court.
“Kory and Stockton are the only pending cases that deal with COVID misinformation as far as I know, so we are the tip of the spear on that issue as far as I can tell,” Jaffe said.
Updated: The original version of this story stated that Kory v. Bonta challenges California’s AB 2098. The law was repealed before the filing of the lawsuit, which instead alleges that the Medical Board of California continues to target physicians for disseminating COVID-19 “misinformation” despite the repeal of the law.
Related articles in The Defender- Doctors, Children’s Health Defense to Take Censorship Case to U.S. Supreme Court After Appeals Loss
- U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Emergency Appeal in Medical Free Speech Case
- CHD, Basketball Legend John Stockton and Censored Doctors Sue Washington Medical Commission
- ‘I Can’t Stay Silent’: Basketball Legend Joins Lawsuit to Protect Free Speech After Son, Father Injured by Vaccines
- CHD, Doctors Ask Supreme Court to Hear Medical Free Speech Case
