Update: Litigation We’ve Been Watching

U.S. Supreme Court

On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a lower court order in Louisiana v. FDA that would have restricted the nationwide distribution of mifepristone, an abortion medication. The stay leaves current FDA rules in place, allowing the drug to be prescribed via telehealth and dispensed by mail or at retail pharmacies while the litigation continues, pending a final decision by the Supreme Court. Read more from KFF.

On March 31, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court held that bans on conversion therapy, which aims to change the patient's sexual orientation or gender identity, constitute impermissible viewpoint discrimination and warrant strict scrutiny by courts. Read more from The Trevor Project.

On June 30, 2026, the Court held that schools may determine eligibility for female sports based on biological sex. Read more from Lambda Legal.

On June 30, 2026, the Court held 5-4 that children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and thus U.S. citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment, invalidating executive order 14160.

On April 29, 2026, the Court decided 6-3 that there was no compelling interest to justify Louisiana's creation of legislative district SB8 using race as a criterion because the Voting Rights Act did not require the creation of an additional majority-minority district, making the legislative map an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

On June 25, 2026, the Court held 6-3 that the statute creating Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which provides short-term humanitarian protection from deportation and work authorization for non-US citizens who cannot safely return to their home countries, does not provide for judicial review of non-constitutional claims, and that termination of Haiti's TPS designation is not likely to be a violation of the equal protection clause because a race-neutral explanation exists for the termination, and respondents are unlikely to prove that race was a motivating factor. Read more from NPR about the ruling's implications and its anticipated impact on the healthcare workforce.

Next term, the Court will decide the fate of youth health care under Washington's SB 5599 (2023), which removed the duty of homeless shelters and organizations serving homeless youth to contact the parents of runaway youth when the youth fear abuse or neglect due to seeking or receiving gender-affirming treatment or reproductive health care. The Court is also expected to review the state law that allows minors to receive outpatient mental health care without parental consent. Read more from Washington State Standard.

State and Lower Federal Courts

NoHLA joined Columbia Legal Services and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility in filing an amicus brief (also known as a friend-of-the-court brief) in support of the plaintiff's position that debt collectors should not be able to collect on hospital debts when the hospital failed to screen and notify the patient regarding their eligibility for charity care. The Washington Supreme Court held hospitals cannot evade their legal obligation to notify and screen for charity care simply by assigning the debt to a collections agency, or put another way, the collections agency cannot collect on a debt where the hospital failed to meet the legal requirements.

On July 7, 2026, a US District Court ruled in favor of the Washington Attorney General's Office in its defense of SB 5981 (2026), which prohibits drug manufacturers from limiting the use of contract pharmacies in the 340B program. The federal 340B program requires drug makers to give substantial discounts on outpatient drugs to certain safety-net providers, which can then bill insurers for the prescriptions at the market rates and help subsidize the care of uninsured and underinsured patients with the difference.

On May 4, 2026, a state Court of Appeals decided that insurance companies may not flatly exclude coverage of weight-loss drugs used to treat obesity. Under state law, obesity is a disability protected under the state's antidiscrimination statute, and an insurer must have a reasonable justification for denying coverage. The ruling could extend to blanket exclusions to coverage of care related to other disabilities, as well. Read more from the Spokesman Review.

On July 9, a US District Court granted the state two preliminary injunctions (Case C24-5639 BHS and Case C23-5626 BHS) requiring GEO Group to allow DOH to inspect its Tacoma facility, Northwest Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center. Washington's HB 1470 (2023) set basic health and safety standards for private detention facilities and allowed DOH to conduct unannounced health and safety inspections of these facilities.