The Docket : May 1, 2026
The Docket is PLF's weekly newsletter covering the cases and clients shaping the future of liberty in America. Subscribe today to follow along. PLF asks FWS to restore protections for California fishermen; Los Angeles property owners challenge City's public monument declaration as a Fifth Amendment taking; and PLF's Amy P ...
PLF asks the Supreme Court to affirm that licensure shouldn’t come at the expense of free speech
Dr. Azadeh Khatibi was six years old when her family fled Tehran, leaving behind the fear and repression of revolutionary Iran. Her parents dared to hope that America would be different for their two daughters, and America delivered on that promise. Dr. Khatibi—whose first name means "freedom" in Farsi—learned English within two months and q ...
Can California silence a doctor-patient phone call?
Trinidad, California, sits at the edge of the continent, a small coastal town nearly 300 miles north of San Francisco. In many ways, its remoteness is part of its charm. For Shellye Horowitz, who has a rare and potentially life-threatening bleeding disorder, it comes with a serious drawback: a state law that restricts her ability to communicate wit ...
A court finally tells FinCEN there is nothing questionable about buying in cash
When a federal court struck down FinCEN's real estate surveillance rule, Celia Flowers finally got an answer to the question that had been haunting her business for two years: Could the government force her to hand over her clients' private information? In 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) finaliz ...
Does the Constitution protect a cancer patient’s right to call his doctor?
When Jun Abell was just 18 months old, he was diagnosed with pineoblastoma—a rare, aggressive brain tumor. After multiple surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy, he was referred to Dr. Shannon MacDonald, a leading pediatric radiation oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Jun's family moved to Boston for two months while he underwent proton ...
Court lets surf school’s First Amendment challenge ride
Helina Beck has been trying to teach surf lessons on California's public beaches for years. On Tuesday, a federal court said her fight can continue, denying California's motion to dismiss her case and handing her a meaningful early victory in a fight over who gets to teach on shorelines that belong to all Californians. The ruling, issued Februar ...
The Hill : Congress must reclaim authority over public lands
For decades, the executive branch has unilaterally withdrawn vast tracts of federal land from productive use through a mechanism known as a public land order. For instance, the Biden administration in 2023 signed Public Land Order 7917, which withdrew more than 225,000 acres of land in northern Minnesota from mineral development. According to ex ...
New year, new SCOTUS opinions
The Supreme Court has issued its first handful (or scoop, if you will) of opinions. And it heard oral arguments in one of the most closely watched cases of the term. But first, the bad news. On Monday, the Court rejected six PLF petitions for review: Hierholzer (challenging racial preferences in federal contracting), Lincinio (asking the Court t ...
Following PLF’s Discrimination Suit, Pritzker Signs Bill Ending Illinois’ Race-Exclusive Scholarship
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker recently signed legislation rewriting the state's scholarship rules—and abruptly ending a decades-old race-exclusive program. The change will moot a lawsuit led by a student member of the American Alliance for Equal Rights and represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation at no cost. The law, House Bill 3065, which took ...