A growing legal dispute over the Justice Department’s investigation into hospitals that provide transgender-related drugs and surgeries to children is escalating into a broader judicial turf war, with Democrat-appointed federal judges in multiple states increasingly stepping into proceedings that legal scholars argue are out of their jurisdictions.
The latest developments came Tuesday, when a federal judge in Maryland weighed a request for nationwide class-action protections against the DOJ’s records requests, while a judge in California moved to halt enforcement of a Texas grand jury subpoena seeking patient records from a children’s hospital.
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The disputes stem from a nationwide DOJ investigation that began last summer, examining whether hospitals and clinics that performed transgender-related drug treatments or surgical procedures on minors violated federal laws involving fraud, misbranding of drugs, or improper billing practices. President Donald Trump’s administration has sought records from hospitals across the country, arguing the information is necessary to determine whether federal laws were broken.
Maryland: Judge questions nationwide class request
In Maryland, U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, heard arguments Tuesday over whether to certify a nationwide class of families seeking to prevent the government from obtaining medical records connected to minors who received transgender medical treatments.
Rubin previously blocked a DOJ subpoena directed at Children’s National Hospital in Washington. Last month, 11 families expanded the litigation, asking the court to certify a nationwide class covering patients who received drugs or surgeries at more than 20 hospitals.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Rubin repeatedly questioned whether there was any precedent for certifying such a broad class and what connection patients treated at hospitals across the country had to her Maryland courtroom.
“There’s no precedent here because there’s no precedent for the government’s actions in this context,” Rachel Berg of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights told the court.
DOJ attorney Scott Dahlquist argued certifying a class before discovery would impair the department’s ability to continue its investigation. He suggested the government could potentially accept records with patient names removed.
“I think that’s a condition that we could live with,” Dahlquist said.
Rubin, however, noted that questions about redactions may be better addressed from the plaintiffs’ perspective. Attorneys for the families argued removing names would not sufficiently protect patient identities because other information could still be used to identify them.
“I will rule as promptly as possible,” Rubin said.
California: Judge blocks Texas subpoena
The Maryland hearing came less than a day after U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts, a Biden appointee in California, issued a temporary restraining order preventing Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital from complying with a grand jury subpoena in Texas seeking records related to transgender drugs and surgeries for children.
The move marked a notable reversal. Just days earlier, Pitts denied an emergency request to stop the subpoena.
After that denial, plaintiffs amended their lawsuit to add the DOJ and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche as defendants. Late Monday, Pitts issued a temporary restraining order blocking compliance with the subpoena statewide.
During a status conference Tuesday morning, Pitts met with attorneys for the plaintiffs, Stanford’s hospital, and the government ahead of an original June 10 subpoena deadline before the Texas federal judge.
The parties agreed to a revised briefing schedule with the government’s response due June 17, the plaintiffs’ reply due June 22, and the subpoena return date pushed back to June 25.
Pitts’s Monday evening reversal from his initial denial of a temporary restraining order drew criticism from conservative legal observers who argued Pitts was interfering with proceedings originating in another federal district.
Abhishek Kambli, a former Trump DOJ attorney now with Holtzman Vogel, said administrative stays are generally used by courts to preserve cases already before them, not to halt proceedings in a completely different district and state.
“Administrative stays normally occur for cases already before the court,” Kambli posted on X. “Not another court’s.”
Kambli also questioned Pitts’s reliance on the All Writs Act, arguing the statute cannot independently create jurisdiction where none otherwise exists.
“To grant such unusual relief in this manner is troubling,” he added.
The California case follows earlier clashes involving Rhode Island Hospital, where U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy, an appointee of Trump, blocked a DOJ subpoena for that facility’s records, only to have the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decline to take further enforcement action over her order last month.
“We do not have jurisdiction over the Northern District of Texas,” the 1st Circuit majority concluded. “The proper source of relief, therefore, is in that court or the Fifth Circuit.”
At the center of the Rhode Island and now California litigations is U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, an appointee of former President George W. Bush in Fort Worth, Texas, who has entertained the government’s subpoena efforts while healthcare attorneys are seeking to disrupt the investigation by filing last-ditch lawsuits in more favorable jurisdictions in completely different states.
Florida and Illinois: Similar fight over state enforcement powers
A separate but related jurisdictional dispute underscores the root problem with these efforts to curtail the government’s subpoenas. A similar issue emerged this week involving Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and the American Academy of Pediatrics, the latter of which asked an Illinois federal court to intervene in an effort to avoid the Sunshine State’s inquiry.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton in Chicago, issued a preliminary injunction barring Uthmeier from pursuing a Florida state court enforcement action against the American Academy of Pediatrics and ordered him to notify the Florida court of the injunction within 48 hours.
Kennelly concluded the medical association was likely to succeed on claims that the Florida action violated its First Amendment rights. The judge also found his court had personal jurisdiction over Uthmeier, that venue was proper in Illinois, and that the case fit within an exception to the normal rule requiring federal courts to abstain from interfering with ongoing state proceedings.
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The ruling prompted criticism from Iowa Solicitor General Eric Wessan, who argued that a federal court in Illinois should not be able to halt a Florida enforcement action brought by Florida officials under Florida law.
“Federalism cannot withstand organizations getting out-of-state injunctions to stop enforcement of a state’s laws in that state,” Wessan posted on X, predicting that Florida may soon appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.
