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Joseph Miller, et al. v. James V. McDonald, Commissioner, New York State Department of Health, et al.
Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, No. 24-681 · judgment March 3, 2025
Before the decision, about 1.9× the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for counsel who has won certiorari before, a Second Circuit decision below, and a petition citing three to ten dissents.
Questions presented
For more than 50 years, New York permitted both medical and religious exemptions to its school vaccine requirement. But in 2019, the New York Legislature categorically eliminated religious exemptions. Sponsors of that law denigrated “fake” and “garbage” religious beliefs that they deemed “selfish and misguided.” But they kept in place a regime of medical exemptions. And they continued to permit nonvaccination of nonstudents (such as teachers) and children outside of school. Today in New York, if a vaccine would harm your lungs, you may be exempted; but if it would harm you soul, you may not. This makes New York an outlier. Forty-six other States (and the District of Columbia) allow religious exemptions to their school vaccine requirements. In this case, New York has imposed existential penalties on three Old Order Amish schools for failing to require vaccines that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. These private schools are in rural Amish communities on private Amish land and are attended only by Amish children. The Second Circuit invoked Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), to find that New York’s law did not violate the Free Exercise Clause as applied to the Amish. The questions presented are:
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Whether a law that categorically disallows religious exemptions but permits secular exemptions and other comparable secular activity violates the Free Exercise Clause as applied to these Amish parents and schools.
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Whether Smith should be reconsidered.
Counsel of record
For petitioner
Scott A. Keller
Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP
For respondent
Barbara Dale Underwood
Solicitor General
Case
Subject area
First Amendment (estimated from the questions presented, in the Supreme Court Database’s categories)
Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference
Amicus briefs
16 cert-stage
Linked docket
24A987
Proceedings
- Jan 09 2026Judgment Issued.
- Dec 08 2025Petition GRANTED. Judgment VACATED and case REMANDED for further consideration in light of Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U. S. 522 (2025).
- Nov 18 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 12/5/2025.
- Nov 17 2025Reply of petitioners Joseph Miller, et al. filed. (Distributed)
- Nov 03 2025Brief of respondents James V. McDonald, Commissioner, New York State Department of Health, et al. in opposition filed.
- Sep 19 2025Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is further extended to and including November 3, 2025.
- Sep 18 2025Motion to extend the time to file a response from October 3, 2025 to November 3, 2025, submitted to The Clerk.
- Sep 03 2025Brief amicus curiae of Foothills Christian Church filed.
- Sep 03 2025Brief amicus curiae of Old Order Amish Bishop Elmer Stoltzfus filed.
- Sep 03 2025Brief amicus curiae of American Hindu Jewish Congress filed.
- Sep 03 2025Brief amicus curiae of Thomas More Society filed.
- Sep 03 2025Brief amicus curiae of Advocates for Faith and Freedom filed.
- Sep 03 2025Brief amicus curiae of Young America’s Foundation filed.
- Sep 03 2025Brief amicus curiae of Stephanie Barclay filed.
- Sep 03 2025Brief amici curiae of National Catholic Bioethics Center, et al. filed.
- Sep 03 2025Brief amici curiae of Navy Seals Gabriel Lynch, et al. filed.
- Sep 03 2025Brief amici curiae of America's Frontline Doctors, et al. filed.
- Sep 02 2025Brief amicus curiae of Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty filed.
- Sep 02 2025Brief amicus curiae of Association of Christian Schools International filed.
- Sep 02 2025Brief amicus curiae of Physicians for Informed Consent filed.
- Sep 02 2025Brief amici curiae of Alabama, et al. filed.
- Sep 02 2025Brief amicus curiae of Florida filed.
- Aug 20 2025Brief amici curiae of Parental Rights Foundation, et al. filed.
- Aug 14 2025Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including October 3, 2025.
- Aug 13 2025Motion to extend the time to file a response from September 3, 2025 to October 3, 2025, submitted to The Clerk.
- Jul 31 2025Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due September 3, 2025)
- Apr 17 2025Application (24A987) granted by Justice Sotomayor extending the time to file until July 31, 2025.
- Apr 14 2025Application (24A987) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from June 1, 2025 to July 31, 2025, submitted to Justice Sotomayor.