Smith v. Albany County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees.
No. 23-8072. 11/26/2024. D.Wyo. Judge Hartz. Government Regulations—COVID-19 Mask Mandate—Student Refusal to Comply With Mandate—First Amendment—Fourteenth Amendment—Standing—Injury in Fact.
November 26, 2024
Grace Smith was a public high school junior at Laramie High School (LHS). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Albany County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees (the board) imposed an indoor mask mandate at LHS. Students who did not want to comply with the mandate were allowed to attend virtual classes. Grace opposed the mandate and repeatedly refused to wear a mask. She also carried signs in front of the school and organized a walkout of 80 students and 30 parents. LHS imposed two-day school suspensions on Grace on three separate occasions. After the second and third suspensions, law enforcement issued Grace a citation for trespassing when she refused to leave school grounds. On the third occasion, police officers arrested Grace and booked her for trespassing before releasing her to her father. Grace withdrew from school in October 2021. Her parents, Andy and Erin Smith, individually and as parents of a minor, sued the board members, the superintendent of schools, and the LHS principal alleging violations of Grace’s First and Fourteenth Amendment US constitutional rights and violations of the rights of Grace and her parents (collectively, the Smiths) under Wyoming law. They requested damages and a declaratory judgment. Defendants removed the case to federal court and moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim. The district court concluded that Grace did not suffer an injury in fact necessary for standing and dismissed the federal law claims for lack of jurisdiction. The court then declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims.
On appeal, the Smiths argued that Grace met the standing requirements. When a government regulation requires or forbids a plaintiff’s action, the plaintiff almost always states an injury in fact. Under US Supreme Court and Tenth Circuit precedent, students have standing to challenge school district policies enforced against them. Here, Grace alleges that defendants repeatedly punished her for opposing the mask mandate by suspending her three times and requesting that local law enforcement issue her two trespassing citations, arrest her, and take her to jail. These allegations state an injury in fact. Therefore, the district court erred by reasoning that Grace’s alleged injuries were hypothetical because the board’s mask mandate had expired and Grace was no longer a student at LHS; and that the injuries were self-inflicted because Grace voluntarily chose to trespass on school property, withdraw from LHS, and forego virtual education.
The order of dismissal was reversed and the case was remanded for further proceedings.