Walz opponent loses 'weaponized' censorship lawsuit against medical board Walz appointed, again

Minnesota doctor Scott Jensen says he's endured six medical license investigations for his COVID-19 views, unrelated to his medical practice, by regulators appointed by Democrat Gov. Tim Walz, whose administration once threatened voters for not masking up at the polls.

Probes started when Jensen was still vice-chair of the state Senate Health and Human Services Committee. Two were opened after he entered the race to knock off Walz as governor before Kamala Harris chose Walz for the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket.

No big deal, according to a federal judge nominated by President Biden after soaring to national prominence as a pro bono prosecutor in the trial against former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd.

U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell dismissed Jensen's lawsuit against the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice for a second time last week, finding he "still fails to plausibly allege a concrete, particularized injury resulting from the Board’s conduct" sufficient for legal standing, nearly a year after Jensen filed an amended complaint with 20 new exhibits.

"Jensen does not allege that he is in imminent danger of being silenced," and the constitutional implications of someone filing a complaint against him "obviously depend on what he might say, who might hear it, whether anyone reports it, and how the Board responds," Blackwell said.

This is "a daisy-chain of speculation and hypotheticals, with each link in the chain dependent on the one before it," and not enough to establish Jensen has standing, the judge said.

The 2016 Minnesota Family Practice Doctor of the Year alleged he was "forced to guard his speech and observe caution" while challenging Walz for governor and "still must take caution to avoid potential time-wasting investigations and frivolous threats to his license."

Jensen was "forced to spend thousands of hours of his professional and campaign time" responding to complaints the board had no authority to investigate, and he "lost revenue and political opportunities because of this diverted time," the Upper Midwest Law Center, which is funding his litigation, said at the time.

He will appeal "and he will win," UMLC said in response to Blackwell's second dismissal. Enduring several investigations after a spotless 40-year medical record "because he was willing to speak out and subsequently chose to run for governor … obviously harmed" Jensen through unconstitutional "weaponized government censorship."

While Canadian nurses were also recently hit with monetary and professional sanctions by human rights and medical licensing panels for their speech – though related to gender identity – another politician north of the border got better news in COVID-related litigation.

On Monday the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned a Superior Court ruling that dismissed former Member of Parliament Randy Hillier's lawsuit against the province's no-exceptions "absolute" ban on peaceful assembly under COVID lockdown, distinguishing the "partial" ban with "tailored restrictions on religious gatherings" upheld in an earlier case.

Hillier faced fines up to $100,000 and a year in prison for acting as "host or organizer" of two anti-lockdown protests in spring 2021 for violating the peaceful assembly ban.

"The fundamental freedom of peaceful assembly" in the Charter "was eliminated entirely for two months," legally prohibiting public assemblies to "protest COVID-19 control measures … either indoors or outdoors," the latter of which are "especially effective at amplifying minority voices and expressing political dissent," Justice Peter Lauwers wrote for the panel.

Hillier's lawyers at the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms said he has "outstanding charges" in five jurisdictions, where prosecutors were "waiting to see the results of this Charter challenge," while charges elsewhere were "stayed or withdrawn."

JCCF faulted Ontario Superior Court Justice Joseph Callaghan for entirely ignoring its expert witness, University of Washington public health professor Kevin Bardosh, known for his harm-benefit studies on COVID policies and interventions. Bardosh is also head of research for U.K.-based COVID policy charity Collateral Global.

One complaint: 'poor penmanship'

Jensen previously pried away Office of Attorney General documents that name or identify him as "the subject of the data" through separate state public records litigation against Democrat Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office represents the state medical board in investigations.

OAG resisted on the basis that Jensen might talk about them publicly and someone would threaten Ellison's office, the same argument made by the Rhode Island Senate to shield the identities of staff who manage its X account in similar litigation.

Carver County District Judge Janet Barke Cain swatted down OAG's invoked exemptions a year ago, including "security information," attorney-client privilege and work product, to withhold emails and Microsoft Teams posts, which themselves referred to "voicemails" and "hate calls" against OAG prompted by Jensen's social media posts about the probes.

She made clear the licensing probes had nothing to do with Jensen's medical practice, simply "his public statements on various COVID-related topics – the virus's threat, masking efficacy and policies, vaccine efficacy, and governmental responses to the pandemic."

Cain said none of Jensen's posts prompted "direct threats" but some of his supporters used "vulgar, crass and entirely disrespectful language" against the board and OAG. 

Jensen said in a video last summer his legal team obtained "dozens and dozens" of new pages from Ellison following Cain's order, which provided "some insight for us" in Jensen's medical board federal lawsuit. 

He also mentioned a sixth board investigation, which brought the total number of allegations to "18 to 20," and said Walz himself invoked a complaint during the campaign to discredit Jensen without noting the evidence might have been "a screenshot of a tweet."

The amended complaint specifies five complaints but accuses each board member of "refusing to dismiss at least six complaints" without elaborating.

Jensen told Just the News Monday the "sixth investigation was an add-on with the notification taking place in January 2023 that a meeting with the Board would need to take place." It included several allegations, one of which he remembers "had to do with poor penmanship," and required him to meet with a "complaint committee."

While Blackwell's second dismissal last week says courts "tread carefully when government action implicates both professional licensing and public speech," it emphasizes that "the receipt, review, and resolution of public complaints by a licensing board falls within the state’s regulatory authority and is not, standing alone, a violation of constitutional rights."

Jensen can't get away with simply saying "a reasonable person would have felt chilled" by the string of investigations – the merits of the case – but "must plausibly allege that he was" to be granted standing, the judge said.

While he alleged he self-censored, "declined speaking opportunities, and tailored his campaign message in response to the Board’s inquiries," Jensen gave "no description of topics he avoided, no speaking engagements he declined, and no messages he altered," Blackwell said. 

He hurt his own case by describing "a public role in which he actively and repeatedly opposed official COVID-19 policies," developing a state and national reputation, and giving specific ways he kept speaking after the Board contacted him," the ruling says. "Missing are the counterexamples: instances where he pulled back."