West Virginia Parents for Religious Freedom, et al. v. Dr. Matthew Christiansen, et al.

Wheeling, West Virginia civil rights lawyers represented the Plaintiff seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against a state mandate for vaccination of children.



The Plaintiffs herein seek appellate relief from an abstention ruling made against

them in August 2023 in the Northern District of West Virginia. See W. Va. Parents for

Religious Freedom v. Christiansen, 685 F. Supp. 3d 371 (N.D.W.Va. 2023) (the

"Abstention Ruling”). By their Complaint, the Plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and

sought declaratory and injunctive relief against Dr. Matthew Christiansen, the State Health

Officer and Commissioner of the West Virginia Bureau of Public Health (the

"Commissioner”). The Complaint alleges a single First Amendment claim, i.e., that West

Virginia's mandatory vaccination requirement for children — section 16-3-4 of the West

Virginia Code (the "Vaccination Mandate”) — is unconstitutional under the Free Exercise

Clause of the First Amendment.



In its Abstention Ruling, the district court applied the so-called Pullman abstention

doctrine and did not resolve the Free Exercise claim alleged in the Complaint. See R.R.

Comm'n of Tex. v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496 (1941). As our colleague Judge Niemeyer

recognized recently in Sonda v. W. Va. Oil & Gas Conservation Comm'n, the Pullman

abstention doctrine is described thusly:



[T]he Pullman exception may be applied when there is (1) an unclear issue

of state law presented for decision (2) the resolution of which may moot or

present in a different posture the federal constitutional issues such that the

state law issue is potentially dispositive



Pursuant to West Virginia law, the public school attendance of all children in the

State aged six to seventeen is mandated, with exceptions for private schooling, parochial

schooling, learning pods, microschooling, and home schooling. See W. Va. Code §§ 18-

8-1–1a. In order for the State's children to attend a public, private, or parochial school,

however, their parents are obliged to comply with the Vaccination Mandate. Pursuant

thereto, those children are required to be immunized against "chickenpox, hepatitis-b,

measles, meningitis, mumps, diphtheria, polio, rubella, tetanus, and whooping cough.” See

W. Va. Code § 16-3-4(b

Pursuant to the foregoing, we vacate the Abstention Ruling and remand for such

other and further proceedings as may be appropriate.