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Elijah Behringer v. California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, et al.
IFP petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, No. 23-4162 · judgment July 21, 2025
Question presented
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Whether this Court’s decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905) provides authority for automatic dismissal of lawsuits challenging the enforcement of COVID-19 mandates or similar emergency-decreed “public health” mandates without holding trial by jury.
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Whether the doctrine of “substantive” due process and its corresponding “rational basis review” and “tiered scrutiny” jurisprudence should be overruled or cabined-off as a matter of law.
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Whether the common-law preservation of the right to trial by jury embodied in the Sixth and Seventh Amendments safeguards a jury prerogative to pass judgment not only on the facts, but also on the law to be applied in a given case before it.
Counsel of record
For petitioner
Elijah Behringer
For respondent
Jacob Canter
Crowell & Moring LLP
Case
Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference
Proceedings
- Feb 23 2026Petition DENIED.
- Feb 05 2026DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/20/2026.
- Jan 06 2026Waiver of right of respondents Board of Trustees of the California State University; President Jeffrey Armstrong; Tina Hadaway-Mells; Valla Hardy; Amy Gode to respond filed.
- Nov 25 2025Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due January 30, 2026)