A new Kansas Supreme Court ruling means that people still can sue Kansas counties over mask mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions and obtain a quick trial-court decision. The court declined Friday to consider whether it's constitutional for a state law to require trial-court judges to rule on such lawsuits within 10 days. It concluded that a Johnson County judge had no business striking down the law in a case that dealt with another legal question. Judge David Hauber struck down the law dealing with counties in deciding a case that dealt a lawsuit against a school district, and school districts were covered by another law that's since expired.
Appeal No. 124,205 archived oral argument
The Supreme Court reversed a Johnson County District Court decision declaring 2021 Senate Bill 40 unconstitutional. The legislation was enacted in March 2021 and included provisions concerning state and local emergency management measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Parents of schoolchildren in the Shawnee Mission School District challenged the district's policy requiring face coverings on school grounds. They sued the district under a provision in S.B. 40 permitting parents to dispute a district's pandemic policy within 30 days and to receive relief if that policy was not narrowly tailored to respond to the emergency. The bill also imposed timelines on district courts to process S.B. 40 lawsuits. The Attorney General intervened after the district court, without prompting from the parents or the district, questioned S.B. 40's constitutionality.
The district court dismissed the parents' suits because they did not challenge the face-covering policy within 30 days. But the court also ruled the legislation violated the federal and state constitutions by depriving the school district of due process and interfering with court operations by imposing the timelines. The Attorney General appealed the ruling on S.B. 40's constitutionality directly to the Supreme Court.
In an opinion written by Justice Dan Biles, the Supreme Court reversed the portion of the district court's decision declaring the bill unconstitutional, as the case was fully resolved by the district court's decision that the lawsuits were not timely.
Expressing no opinion on S.B. 40's validity, Biles wrote that the court recognized its "decision may be just a temporary retreat from a raging storm, but it reflects necessary adherence to a long-standing doctrine of judicial self-restraint known as constitutional avoidance. This rule strongly counsels against courts deciding a case on a constitutional question if it can be resolved in some other fashion, especially when the question concerns the validity of a statute enacted by our coordinate branches of state government."
Chief Justice Marla Luckert dissented, arguing the appeal should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. She said the district court lacked authority to reach S.B. 40's constitutionality once it decided the lawsuits were untimely.
She explained that any appellate review of the district court's judgment would be advisory only, violating the state Constitution's limit on Kansas courts' powers to resolve actual cases or controversies. Justice Caleb Stegall joined her dissent.
