Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Higher Court Revives Lawsuit By Laramie High Schooler Arrested Over Not Masking
Cowboy State Daily. ^ | November 26, 2024 | Clair McFarland

Posted on 11/28/2024 7:24:36 PM PST by george76

A former Laramie High School student who was arrested over a dispute over masking had her lawsuit against the local school district revived Tuesday. It had been dismissed by a lower court in 2023...

The former Laramie High School student who sued her school district for having her arrested after she refused to wear a mask has standing and can keep waging her lawsuit, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.

Grace Smith and her parents Andy and Erin Smith sued the Albany County School District in August 2023, in federal court, over the district’s 2021 mask mandate.

Smith had refused to wear a mask, had declined to take virtual instead of in-person schooling, organized a walkout in protest of the mask mandate, was suspended for three different two-day stints, and was ultimately arrested for trespassing while at school.

Police officers arrested and handcuffed Smith, drove her to the police station, booked her for trespassing, then released her to her father.

Ultimately, she withdrew from the school.

Smith sued the district first in state court, then in federal.

She accuses the district of violating her right to free speech by compelling her “to utter what was not in her mind” by wearing a mask. She also claims the school district retaliated against her for her protests, and violated her right to due process by enforcing the mask mandate against her.

Smith also raised other claims under Wyoming law.

U.S. District Court Senior Judge Nancy Freudenthal dismissed the case in September 2023, saying Smith lacked standing or a genuine controversy, because she’d failed to show an “actual” harm that wasn’t of her own making.

“The closest that Plaintiffs get to an ‘actual’ injury in fact is (Grace Smith’s) own decision to forego virtually attending school, continuing trespassing on school property, and voluntarily withdrawing from Laramie High School,” wrote Freudenthal. “Plaintiffs lack an injury in fact required for standing; at least one that is not self-inflicted.”

We Are Not Persuaded The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees Wyoming’s federal courts system, disagrees with Freudenthal’s ruling.

“We are not persuaded,” reads a Tuesday order by 10th Circuit Judges Harris Hartz, Gregory Phillips and Allison Eid, which sends Smith’s case back down to the U.S. District Court for Wyoming for further proceeding.

When a government regulation forbids or requires some action by the plaintiff, she almost invariably can show she’s been harmed, says the order.

“Grace has easily met the requirements for standing,” the order says. “She alleges that the defendants repeatedly punished her for opposing the mask mandate. They suspended her three times and requested that local law enforcement issue her two trespassing citations, arrest her and take her to jail.”

The school district countered that wearing or not wearing a mask isn’t protected speech, and Smith hasn’t shown she suffered a due process violation.

Even if these points win the case for the school district, they’re not the issue at hand, says the appellate judges’ order. The issue is whether Smith has standing to sue.

Freudenthal said in her order dismissing Smith’s case that Smith’s claims also are without merit. But Smith did not ask the 10th Circuit to grapple with that conclusion, the Tuesday order says.

The judges also were unpersuaded by Freudenthal’s conclusion that Smith’s harms are less actionable if they were self-inflicted, and by any indication that virtual instruction would have been equal to in-person instruction, for Smith.

“We reverse the district court’s order (to dismiss this case) and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion,” the opinion concludes.


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Education; Health/Medicine; Science
KEYWORDS: dueprocess; freespeech; highschool; laramie; law; mandate; mandates; mask; masking; maskmandate; maskmandates; student; wyoming; wyominglaw
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-23 next last

1 posted on 11/28/2024 7:24:36 PM PST by george76
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: george76

They ought to drag Fauci into that court and hang him.


2 posted on 11/28/2024 7:36:47 PM PST by HIDEK6 (God bless Donald Trump)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: george76

They ought to drag Fauci into that court and hang him.


3 posted on 11/28/2024 7:36:59 PM PST by HIDEK6 (God bless Donald Trump)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: HIDEK6

Yup! Already admitted the mask and distancing “rules” were arbitrary. Keep up the suit youngster!


4 posted on 11/28/2024 7:44:07 PM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within ? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this💩? 🚫💉! 🇮🇱👍!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: HIDEK6

there must be hemp rope available?


5 posted on 11/28/2024 7:44:34 PM PST by South Dakota (Vance / Trump...2028)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: george76
Ha, ha, ha!

What goes around comes around -- ultimately!

Stated another way, Karama's a bitch!

6 posted on 11/28/2024 7:58:01 PM PST by icclearly
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: george76
That new sheriff in town, RFK Jr., is about to be heard loud and clear.

Go RFK Jr.

Stand by there, Fauci. You're on a list now.

Remember that little ole virus you made up back when in China and the lies/propaganda that followed for two solid years? We sure do!

7 posted on 11/28/2024 8:08:03 PM PST by icclearly
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: icclearly
Fauci should volunteer to try out the fancy new Sarco Pod.


8 posted on 11/28/2024 8:19:18 PM PST by Governor Dinwiddie ( O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious, and His mercy endureth forever. — Psalm 106)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: HIDEK6

Preferably in the public square.


9 posted on 11/28/2024 9:25:31 PM PST by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: South Dakota

Here’s hoping.


10 posted on 11/28/2024 9:25:41 PM PST by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: george76

Add false imprisonment charges against the cops who arrested her and the school administrator who called them.


11 posted on 11/28/2024 9:35:39 PM PST by T.B. Yoits
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: T.B. Yoits

Sue the administrator for making the personal decision to arrest the kid.


12 posted on 11/28/2024 10:35:33 PM PST by Jonty30 (Genghis Khan did not have the most descendants. His father had more. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: george76

Good to see this will go forward!


13 posted on 11/28/2024 11:30:04 PM PST by antceecee ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: HIDEK6

14 posted on 11/29/2024 12:04:53 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: rktman

They literally pulled the ‘6 ft distancing’ out of their butts!


15 posted on 11/29/2024 3:45:58 AM PST by Cowgirl of Justice
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Cowgirl of Justice

They literally pulled the ‘6 ft distancing’ out of their butts!

*****

You have to pull it from some where chit and all.


16 posted on 11/29/2024 6:33:12 AM PST by deport
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: FreedomPoster

Weird. Kinda feel like a higher power guided us to the correct choice to not participate in the clinical trials. Heard there is a new improvede minty flavored CONvid vax out. Is it still labeled EUA?


17 posted on 11/29/2024 7:16:01 AM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within ? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this💩? 🚫💉! 🇮🇱👍!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: george76

Let’s hope that Grace Smith and her lawyers financially clean the clocks of the school district and the city coffers for their actions.


18 posted on 11/29/2024 7:20:36 AM PST by Carl Vehse
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: george76
The underlying issue is the RINO influence on local politics and the Republican Party. Wyoming has not gone below a 64% majority for Republican Presidential candidates in this century. Both houses of the legislature have GOP supermajorities. However, the governor is a man with New England high society roots who brought his Rockefeller Republican heritage westward. He is Lowell Weicker or John Kerry in a cowboy hat and boots.
19 posted on 11/29/2024 7:42:54 AM PST by Wallace T.
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rktman

#PureBlood here. I saw too many lies surrounding Covid in 1Q and 2Q 2020 to believe anything they were telling me about the vax.


20 posted on 11/29/2024 8:27:44 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-23 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson