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The federal lawsuit brought by Dr. Meryl Nass, an outspoken critic of official COVID-19 policies, against Maine’s medical licensing board can proceed, a judge ruled late last week.
Nass, an internal medicine physician and biological warfare expert, told The Defender she is pleased with the ruling.
“I will eagerly move forward with the legal case to clear my name and defend the free speech right of medical practitioners to tell the truth to their patients, especially if it goes against government or medical orthodoxy,” Nass said.
Chief U.S. District Judge Lance E. Walker on Aug. 20 ordered the case to proceed after the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine (BOLIM) tried to have the suit dismissed. The board has two weeks to appeal the decision, according to Gene R. Libby, one of the attorneys representing Nass.
The main takeaway from the case is that “the government, through the board of licensure, did not like Dr. Nass’s speech and was seeking to both silence and punish her in the rush to shut down dissent from the government’s preferred narrative,” Libby said.
“We were thrilled the court saw through the board’s effort to silence Dr. Nass by misusing their emergency authority when there was no basis in fact to suspend her license,” he added.
Kim Mack Rosenberg, general counsel at Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said Nass’ case highlights the harms of silencing physicians’ speech. “We have learned, particularly in recent years, the dangers of taking away physicians’ rights to speak — it harms the physicians, patients and the general public,” she said.
Board’s psychological evaluation order was ‘retaliatory,’ judge says
Walker’s order allowing the case to move forward is the latest move in a legal battle sparked in January 2022, when the BOLIM suspended Nass’ license for spreading COVID-19 “misinformation.”
BOLIM also claimed Nass had improperly prescribed hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin and kept records improperly.
The “misinformation” charges were dropped in October 2022. But in September 2023, the board found Nass guilty of medical incompetence and placed her on a two-year probation.
In December 2023, the BOLIM voted unanimously to extend the suspension of Nass’ medical license to 39 months. It also levied a $10,000 fine and required Nass to engage in professional oversight and undergo a psychological evaluation to get her medical license back.
In August 2023, Nass sued the board in federal court, alleging violations of her First Amendment rights and her rights under the Maine Constitution by using their power to “crush dissenting views and chill disfavored speech.”
CHD is helping fund the suit.
In January 2024, the court heard arguments on whether the case should be dismissed.
Nass filed a similar lawsuit in state court. On Oct. 30, 2025, the state court ruled that Nass didn’t need to complete the psychological evaluation because the board’s order telling her to do so was arbitrary and capricious, according to the Aug. 20 ruling.
The federal court ruling built on the state court’s ruling, Nass said.
The federal court concluded that not only did Nass not have to undergo the psychological evaluation but that the board members “had no business ordering it in the first place,” she said.
The board argued that it was immune from legal prosecution because its actions toward Nass, particularly the psychological evaluation, were performed in a quasi-judicial capacity.
But the federal judge disagreed. Walker wrote, “I … agree with Dr. Nass that the immediate imposition of the Psychological Evaluation Order did not bear any of the hallmarks of judicial proceedings.”
“They were acting outside of what is expected of a board member,” Nass said.
Plus, the board had no evidence suggesting that Nass was mentally ill. Walker wrote:
“The record before the Board did not include any suggestion or information that Dr. Nass suffered from drug or alcohol abuse or a physical condition, suggesting that, if anything, the Board considered Dr. Nass’s opinions to be the product of not independent thought but a mental illness or mental condition.”
Walker agreed with Nass and her lawyers when they argued that the board’s psychological evaluation requirement as a condition of getting her license back was a “retaliatory sanction for disfavored speech.”
Walker wrote that “the imposition of this sanction would suggest that the board was making an example out of Dr. Nass.”
He dismissed some of Nass’ other claims, but said that “at a minimum” her claim about the psychological evaluation warrants the case not be dismissed.
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Nass shocked that judge actually read her CV
Nass said that over the last three years as she has fought Maine’s medical board in court, she’s grown accustomed to being characterized by the board’s lawyers — and sometimes the judges assigned to reviewing her case — as ignorant and unskilled.
“They have always tried to make me out to be this really stupid and lazy practitioner who doesn’t deserve to have a medical license,” she said.
That’s why Nass said she was pleasantly “shocked” when she read Walker’s Aug. 20 ruling.
It was clear the judge took the time to read her CV (curriculum vitae), she said. He noted some of her accomplishments. For instance, Walker wrote:
“Dr. Nass has testified to Congress on six occasions and, as an acknowledged expert on anthrax and the anthrax vaccine, has been quoted in major media outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, and the Chicago Tribune.”
Walker also pointed out that Nass had been a Maine-licensed doctor since 1997 with no disciplinary infractions until the board’s complaints in 2022.
These acknowledgments of Nass’s skills and accomplishments “had never come out in any of the judges’ rulings before,” Nass said.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in California barred California medical regulators from investigating or disciplining three doctors based on the viewpoints they share with their patients about COVID-19.
In his order, 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, which applies only to those three doctors, 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. CHD is funding the suit.
Mack Rosenberg pointed out that the Supreme Court in April issued a decision in favor of protecting medical professionals’ speech. “I am glad to see some of the decisions silencing medical professionals being called out and remedied,” she said.
The Maine medical licensing board did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
Related articles in The Defender
- Federal Judge Blocks California From Disciplining Doctors for COVID Medical Advice That Contradicts Public Health Officials
- ‘Malicious Prosecution’: Lawyers for Dr. Meryl Nass Allege Maine Medical Board Violated Nass’ First Amendment Rights
- Breaking: Dr. Meryl Nass Sues Maine Medical Board Over Suspension, Alleges Board Violated Her First Amendment Rights
- ‘They Stole His Practice’: Medical Board Drops Case Against Canadian Doctor Who Questioned COVID Vaccines
