Higher Court Revives Lawsuit By Laramie High Schooler Arrested Over Not Masking

The former Laramie High School student who sued her school district for having her arrested after she refused to wear a mask has standing and can keep waging her lawsuit, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.

Grace Smith and her parents Andy and Erin Smith sued the Albany County School District in August 2023, in federal court, over the district’s 2021 mask mandate.

Smith had refused to wear a mask, had declined to take virtual instead of in-person schooling, organized a walkout in protest of the mask mandate, was suspended for three different two-day stints, and was ultimately arrested for trespassing while at school.

Police officers arrested and handcuffed Smith, drove her to the police station, booked her for trespassing, then released her to her father.

Ultimately, she withdrew from the school.

Smith sued the district first in state court, then in federal.

She accuses the district of violating her right to free speech by compelling her “to utter what was not in her mind” by wearing a mask. She also claims the school district retaliated against her for her protests, and violated her right to due process by enforcing the mask mandate against her.

Smith also raised other claims under Wyoming law.

U.S. District Court Senior Judge Nancy Freudenthal dismissed the case in September 2023, saying Smith lacked standing or a genuine controversy, because she’d failed to show an “actual” harm that wasn’t of her own making.

“The closest that Plaintiffs get to an ‘actual’ injury in fact is (Grace Smith’s) own decision to forego virtually attending school, continuing trespassing on school property, and voluntarily withdrawing from Laramie High School,” wrote Freudenthal. “Plaintiffs lack an injury in fact required for standing; at least one that is not self-inflicted.”  

We Are Not Persuaded

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees Wyoming’s federal courts system, disagrees with Freudenthal’s ruling.

“We are not persuaded,” reads a Tuesday order by 10th Circuit Judges Harris Hartz, Gregory Phillips and Allison Eid, which sends Smith’s case back down to the U.S. District Court for Wyoming for further proceeding.

When a government regulation forbids or requires some action by the plaintiff, she almost invariably can show she’s been harmed, says the order.

“Grace has easily met the requirements for standing,” the order says. “She alleges that the defendants repeatedly punished her for opposing the mask mandate. They suspended her three times and requested that local law enforcement issue her two trespassing citations, arrest her and take her to jail.”

The school district countered that wearing or not wearing a mask isn’t protected speech, and Smith hasn’t shown she suffered a due process violation.

Even if these points win the case for the school district, they’re not the issue at hand, says the appellate judges’ order. The issue is whether Smith has standing to sue.

Freudenthal said in her order dismissing Smith’s case that Smith’s claims also are without merit. But Smith did not ask the 10th Circuit to grapple with that conclusion, the Tuesday order says.

The judges also were unpersuaded by Freudenthal’s conclusion that Smith’s harms are less actionable if they were self-inflicted, and by any indication that virtual instruction would have been equal to in-person instruction, for Smith.

“We reverse the district court’s order (to dismiss this case) and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion,” the opinion concludes.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.