Filed Date: March 1, 2000
Closed Date: Oct. 21, 2010
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Abortion providers in Arizona brought this case on March 1, 2000 on behalf of themselves and their patients against several state officials pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, including the Director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, the Arizona Attorney General, and a class of all prosecuting attorneys in the state of Arizona. The plaintiffs were represented by the County Attorney for the County of Maricopa. Plaintiffs challenged a set of Arizona statutes and regulations passed in 1999 that provided for the licensing, supervision, regulation, and control of physician practices in which five or more first trimester abortions per month or any post-first trimester abortions were performed. Plaintiffs requested declaratory and injunctive relief against enforcement of these laws because they allegedly violated plaintiffs’ and their patients’ constitutional rights to equal protection, due process (vagueness and undue burden), informational privacy, and undue delegation under the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as their right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The case was assigned to Judge Raner C. Collins.
Plaintiffs also promptly filed a motion for preliminary injunction to stay enforcement of the statutes and regulations at issue while the case was ongoing. On several occasions throughout the discovery period, Judge Collins granted stipulations by both parties that defendants would not enforce the statutes and regulations, though a formal preliminary injunction was never issued.
The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment in April 2001. Plaintiffs’ motion sought relief as a matter of law on all claims except for their undue burden claim, on which they maintained there was a disputed issue of material fact. Defendants filed six separate motions for summary judgment, one for each of the plaintiffs’ claims. The court granted in part and denied in part both parties’ motions. 2002 WL 32595282.
The plaintiffs’ Equal Protection claim rested on three alleged violations: (1) physicians that provide abortions are singled out from physicians that provide comparable procedures, (2) women seeking abortions were treated differently than men seeking similar medical procedures, and (3) physician practices that provide five or more first trimester abortions per month were treated differently from those that provide less than five. The court found none of these persuasive, and granted summary judgment to the defendants.
However, the court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment on the Fourth Amendment unreasonable search and seizure issue. Due to the sensitive nature of abortion and the physician-patient relationship, the court held that licensed abortion clinics were sufficiently different form other places of business that courts have allowed to be closely regulated (including auto junkyards, catering businesses, and the veterinary drug industry). Thus, the regulatory provision requiring that the clinics give the Department of Health Services access to their facilities and requiring disclosure of patient medical records without a warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.
Further, the court concluded that the regulations violated an individual’s right to informational privacy by requiring disclosure of unredacted patient medical records and personal information contained in ultrasound prints. However, the court also found that the provision providing for warrantless searches of physicians’ offices had already been addressed in the plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claim above. Accordingly, the court granted in part and denied in part plaintiffs’ and defendants’ motions for summary judgment on the informational privacy claim.
The plaintiffs further contended that the statutes and regulations at issues granted local hospitals “unbridled power” to determine whether plaintiffs may continue to provide abortions, and that granting third parties authority to prevent otherwise legal abortions violated the Constitution. The court disagreed, holding that the delegation did not explicitly give hospitals the authority to act unconstitutionally, and did not grant unbridled or unfettered discretion because it was still subject to judicial review and held to constitutional standards. Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on this claim was granted, and plaintiffs’ denied.
In their fifth claim, plaintiffs alleged that the statutes and regulations were unconstitutionally vague under the Due Process Clause because it failed to provide abortion providers a reasonable opportunity to know what conduct is prohibited and allowed room for potential discriminatory and arbitrary enforcement. In particular, plaintiffs argued that the term “gestational age” contained two incompatible methods of calculation because they produced estimates roughly two weeks apart. In addition, plaintiffs challenged medical terms of art or medical judgments such as “potentially life-threatening,” “serious injury, “vital signs,” and drugs and equipment needed to support and monitor cardiopulmonary function. The court reviewed case law from the Seventh and Fifth Circuits to determine that none of these terms were vague enough to raise a constitutional issue, and thus granted summary judgment on this claim to defendants.
Finally, plaintiffs argued that the court could not resolve their undue burden claim under the Due Process Clause at the summary judgment stage because a factual issue remained as to whether the implementation of the statutes and regulations would result in increased costs for abortions. Defendants argued that no issue of material fact existed because the statutes and regulations served a valid purpose, were not enacted for an invidious purpose, and that plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that they would result in prohibitive cost increases. The court agreed with defendants and granted their motion for summary judgment on plaintiffs’ undue burden claim.
The court also noted that the statutory scheme contained a severability clause, so the portions ruled unconstitutional by the court’s order could be cleanly severed without additional provisions being held invalid. Both parties appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
On June 18, 2004, in an opinion written by Judge Sidney R. Thomas, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to plaintiffs on their Fourth Amendment and informational privacy, as well as its grant of partial summary judgment to plaintiffs on their vagueness claims. 371 F.3d 1173. The Ninth Circuit also affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to defendants on the equal protection and the undue delegation claims, as well as its grant of partial summary judgment to defendants on the vagueness claims. However, the court reversed and remanded the district court’s grant of summary judgment to defendants on the undue burden claim, holding that the district court too quickly discounted the burdens imposed by the statutes and regulations, including financial and health costs. The plaintiffs were thus entitled to a bench trial and specific findings of fact as to the impact the burdens would have on women seeking abortions.
Both parties filed petitions for rehearing. On August 23, 2004, the Ninth Circuit issued an amended opinion, holding that one particular portion of the regulatory scheme did not violate informational privacy rights. 379 F.3d 531. The particular regulation in question required licensees to release information, including the name of a patient, to a professional licensing board if there was an “incident” with the patient involving death or serious injury. The Ninth Circuit took up this issue on appeal even though it had not been raised below, and had found an informational privacy violation in its earlier opinion. After reviewing the petitions for rehearing, the Ninth Circuit decided to amend their opinion, finding no informational privacy violation because the type of information requested was narrow, the potential for harm in any subsequent non-consensual disclosure was minimal, and the state interest in having the professional physician licensing board follow up on serious incidents was strong. With this amended opinion, the Ninth Circuit denied the petitions for rehearing.
Back in the district court, the parties engaged in settlement negotiations and eventually submitted a joint stipulation of settlement on September 10, 2008, which the court promptly granted. The Arizona Department of Health Services agreed under the settlement to write a new list of rules and regulations to implement the 1999 statute, which reduced the burdens on abortion providers by requiring the the health department to have a warrant in order to obtain patient records with identifying information and requiring dates of inspections to be scheduled with abortion facilities ahead of time. The regulations were implemented in 2010, and the case was dismissed with prejudice on October 21, 2010.
Summary Authors
Zoe Goldstein (3/27/2022)
For PACER's information on parties and their attorneys, see: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4489815/parties/tucson-womans-clini-v-schamadan/
Amiri, Brigitte (Arizona)
Anderson, Bebe Jill (Arizona)
Adams, Lynne Christensen (Arizona)
Albrecht, Richard (Arizona)
Alexander, Rachel R (Arizona)
See docket on RECAP: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4489815/tucson-womans-clini-v-schamadan/
Last updated Oct. 3, 2025, 2:40 a.m.
State / Territory:
Case Type(s):
Healthcare Access and Reproductive Issues
Key Dates
Filing Date: March 1, 2000
Closing Date: Oct. 21, 2010
Case Ongoing: No
Plaintiffs
Plaintiff Description:
Abortion providers in Arizona
Plaintiff Type(s):
Attorney Organizations:
Center for Reproductive Rights
Public Interest Lawyer: Yes
Filed Pro Se: No
Class Action Sought: No
Class Action Outcome: Not sought
Defendants
Arizona Department of Health and Human Services, State
Defendant Type(s):
Case Details
Causes of Action:
Constitutional Clause(s):
Due Process: Substantive Due Process
Unreasonable search and seizure
Other Dockets:
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 02-17375
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 02-17381
District of Arizona 4:00-cv-00141
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 02-17382
Available Documents:
Outcome
Prevailing Party: Mixed
Nature of Relief:
Injunction / Injunctive-like Settlement
Source of Relief:
Form of Settlement:
Court Approved Settlement or Consent Decree
Issues
Reproductive rights:
Reproductive health care (including birth control, abortion, and others)