Amicus Curiae Brief — International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc., et al., Petitioners v. Bob Ferguson, Governor of Washington, et al.

No. 25-840

In the Supreme Court of the

United States

INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS FOR ETHICAL CARE, INC.,

ET AL.,

PETITIONERS,

v.

BOB FERGUSON, GOVERNOR OF WASHINGTON, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE

NINTH CIRCUIT

BRIEF OF LEGAL SCHOLARS AS AMICI

CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

JUDD E. STONE II

Counsel of Record

CHRISTOPHER D. HILTON

ARI CUENIN

KATHRYN CHERRY

STONE HILTON PLLC

600 Congress Ave., Ste. 2350

Austin, Texas 78701

judd@stonehilton.com

(737) 465-3897

Counsel for Amici Curiae

QUE STION P RE SENTED

Whether parents have standing to challenge a law or

policy that deliberately displaces their decision-making

role as to “gender transitions” of their children, and in so

doing creates present and likely future impediments to

their ability to parent their children as they deem best

for them.

(I)

II

TABL E OF C O NTENTS

Page

Question presented ......................................................... I

Table of contents ............................................................ II

Table of authorities ....................................................... IV

Interest of amici curiae ................................................. 1

Summary of argument .................................................... 1

Argument ......................................................................... 4

I. The Understanding of Parental Rights at the

Founding, as in the Modern Day, Flowed from

a Deep Common-Law Tradition. ....................... 4

A. The common law imbued parentage with

duties, natural rights, and legally protected

interests. ......................................................... 4

B. American parental-rights jurisprudence

reflects that longstanding history. ............. 10

II. The Original Understanding Encompassed

Care, Custody, Education, Moral Formation,

and Medical Judgment as a Group of Rights

Uniquely Protected from State Intrusion. ..... 12

III. Washington’s Law Inverts the Founding-Era

Paradigm by Empowering the State to

Displace Fit Parents Without Notice, Consent,

or Individualized Process. ................................ 17

A. Displacing fit parents over disagreement

flouts the history of parental rights........... 17

B. Washington’s law lacks the protections

historically understood as necessary to

intrude in parental authority. ..................... 21

C. Petitioners’ case presents concrete injury in

the preventive tradition of equity. ............. 25

Conclusion ...................................................................... 28

III

Table of Appendices ......................................................... i

Appendix ........................................................................ 1a

IV

TABL E OF AU THORI TIE S

Cases

Page(s)

Alfred L. Snapp & Son, Inc. v. Puerto Rico ex rel. Barez,

458 U.S. 592 (1982) ..................................................... 20

Am. Acad. of Pediatrics v. Lungren,

16 Cal. 4th 307 (1997) ................................................. 17

Ashby v. White,

2 Ld. Raym. 938, 92 Eng. Rep. 126 (K.B. 1703)

(Holt, C.J.), rev’d, 1 Eng. Rep. 417 (H.L. 1704) .. 9, 10

Bonner v. Moran,

126 F.2d 121 (D.C. Cir. 1941) .................................... 16

Brown v. Ent. Merchs. Ass’n,

564 U.S. 786 (2011) ....................................................... 5

Butterfield v. Ashley,

60 Mass. (6 Cush.) 249 (1850) .................................... 25

Campbell v. Cooper,

34 N.H. 49 (1856) ........................................................ 11

Cherokee Nation v. Georgia,

30 U.S. 1 (1831) ........................................................... 26

Commonwealth v. Addicks,

2 Serg. & Rawle 174 (Pa. 1815) ................................. 20

Dep’t of Com. v. New York,

588 U.S. 752 (2019) ..................................................... 24

Ex parte Barry,

43 U.S. (2 How.) 65 (1844) ......................................... 20

Ex parte Crouse,

4 Whart. 9 (Pa. 1839) .................................................. 20

V

Eyre v. Countess of Shaftsbury,

2 P. Wms. 103, 24 Eng. Rep. 659 (Ch. 1722) ............ 21

Falkland v. Bertie,

2 Vern. 333, 23 Eng. Rep. 814 (Ch. 1696) ............ 20-21

Gordon v. Washington,

295 U.S. 30 (1935) .................................................. 25-26

Gulf, C. & S.F. Ry. Co. v. Redeker,

67 Tex. 190 (1886) ....................................................... 11

Jones v. Tevis,

14 Ky. 25 (1823) ...................................................... 10-11

Mahmoud v. Taylor,

606 U.S. 522 (2025) .......................................... 19, 22-23

Marbury v. Madison,

5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803) ........................................ 9

McConihay v. Wright,

121 U.S. 201 (1887) ..................................................... 25

Meyer v. Nebraska,

262 U.S. 390 (1923) ........................................... 3, 12, 14

Moss v. Rishworth,

222 S.W. 225 (Tex. Comm’n App. 1920) ................... 16

Osborn v. Bank of U.S.,

22 U.S. 738 (1824) ......................................................... 9

Parham v. J.R.,

442 U.S. 584 (1979) ...................... 3, 6, 15-16, 17, 18, 23

People ex rel. O’Connell v. Turner,

55 Ill. 280 (1870) .......................................................... 20

Pierce v. Society of Sisters,

268 U.S. 510 (1925) ............................... 3, 12, 14, 15, 18

VI

Plummer v. Webb,

19 F. Cas. 891 (No. 11,233) (C.C.D. Me. 1827) .... 8, 26

Prince v. Massachusetts,

321 U.S. 158 (1944) ..................................... 3, 14, 15, 18

Rogers v. Sells,

178 Okla. 103, 61 P.2d 1018 (1936) ............................ 16

Santosky v. Kramer,

455 U.S. 745 (1982) ..................................................... 18

Sargent v. Mathewson,

38 N.H. 54 (1859) ........................................................ 11

Schloendorff v. Society of N.Y. Hospital,

211 N.Y. 125 (1914) ..................................................... 16

Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins,

578 U.S. 330 (2016) ..................................................... 10

Stanley v. Illinois,

405 U.S. 645 (1972) ......................................... 14, 18, 22

Stone v. Wall,

734 So. 2d 1038 (Fla. 1999) .......................................... 8

TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez,

594 U.S. 413 (2021) ................................................. 4, 27

Troxel v. Granville,

530 U.S. 57 (2000) ................................. 2, 3, 4, 7, 13, 18

United States v. Green,

26 F. Cas. 30 (No. 15,256) (C.C.D.R.I. 1824) ........... 20

Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski,

592 U.S. 279 (2021) .................................................. 9-10

Virginia v. Am. Booksellers Ass’n, Inc.,

484 U.S. 383 (1988) ..................................................... 24

VII

Webb v. Portland Mfg. Co.,

29 F. Cas. 506 (No. 17,322) (C.C.D. Me. 1838) .... 8, 10

Weston v. City Council of Charleston,

27 U.S. 449 (1829) ......................................................... 9

Winsmore v. Greenbank,

Willes 577, 125 Eng. Rep. 1330 (C.P. 1745) ............ 8-9

Wisconsin v. Yoder,

406 U.S. 205 (1972) ........................................... 3, 14, 15

Zoski v. Gaines,

271 Mich. 1 (1935) ....................................................... 16

Statutes, Rule, and Other Authorities

1 W. Blackstone,

Commentaries (1765) .......................... 5-6, 7, 13, 14, 16

3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries (1768) ..... 8, 9, 19, 24, 26

4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries (1769) ......................... 25

1 J. Bouvier, Institutes of American Law

(Robert E. Peterson ed. 1851) ..................................... 7

1 J. Burlamaqui, The Principles of Natural and

Political Law (5th ed. 1807) ........................................ 5

1 S. Comyn, A Treatise of the Law Relative to Contracts and Agreements Not Under Seal (1807) ....... 16

2 N. Dane, A General Abridgment and Digest of

American Law (1824) ................................................ 16

Toby L. Ditz, Ownership and Obligation: Inheritance

and Patriarchal Households in Connecticut,

1750–1820, 47 Wm. & Mary Q. 235 (1990) ................ 15

1 J. High, A Treatise on the Law of Injunctions (4th ed.

1905) ............................................................................. 25

VIII

2 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law

(1826) .................................................. 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19

Thomas R. Lee, The Standing of Qui Tam

Relators Under the False Claims Act,

57 U. Chi. L. Rev. 543 (1990) ..................................... 10

J. Locke, Second Treatise of Government

(6th ed. 1764) ....................................................... 5, 6, 14

Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641, art. 1,

reprinted in The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts

33 (William Henry Whitmore ed. 1889) ..................... 5

W. Prosser, Law of Torts (2d ed. 1955) ..................... 24-25

S. Pufendorf, The Whole Duty of Man According to

the Law of Nature (5th ed. 1735) ................. 5, 6, 14-15

T. Reeve, The Law of Baron and Femme, of Parent

and Child, Guardian and Ward, Master and

Servant, and of the Powers of Courts of

Chancery (2d ed. 1846) ......................................... 13, 14

Restatement of Torts (Am. L. Inst. 1938) ..................... 12

Restatement (Second) of Torts

(Am. L. Inst. 1977) ................................................ 12, 24

J. Schouler, A Treatise on the Law of the Domestic

Relations (2d ed. 1874) .............................................. 13

2 J. Story, Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence

(1836) ...................................................................... 11, 25

3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of

the United States (1833) .............................................. 9

Cass R. Sunstein, What’s Standing After Lujan?

Of Citizen Suits, “Injuries,” and Article III,

91 Mich. L. Rev. 163 (1992) ....................................... 10

IX

Sup. Ct. R. 37.6 ................................................................... 1

1 Z. Swift, A System of the Laws of the State of

Connecticut (1795) ..................................................... 6-7

2 St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries:

With Notes of Reference to the Constitution and

Laws of the Federal Government of the United

States and of the Commonwealth of Virginia (1803)7

R. H. Tyler, Commentaries on the Law of Infancy

(2d ed. 1882) ................................................................ 16

Wash. Rev. Code § 13.32A.082(1)(b)(i) (2013) ............... 22

Wash. Rev. Code § 13.32A.082(2)(c)(ii) .......................... 22

Wash. Rev. Code § 13.32A.082(2)(d) .............................. 22

Wash. Rev. Code § 13.32A.082(3)(a)–(b) ........................ 22

Wash. Rev. Code § 13.32A.082(3)(b)(i) ........................... 22

Nathan J. Wertjes, Parents and Medical Consent:

An Analysis of Parental Rights from

the Common Law to the Founding,

100 Notre Dame L. Rev. 2259 (2025) ........................ 16

I NTEREST OF AMIC I CURIAE 1

Amici are six law professors who teach and write in

the fields of constitutional law, legal history, and related

subjects. See Appendix A (listing the individual law professors joining this brief). They have a professional interest in the original and historical foundations of the parental-rights doctrine and in ensuring that courts do not

narrow that doctrine by treating fit parents as constitutional strangers to decisions about their own children.

Amici submit this brief to assist the Court in evaluating

the Founding-era materials and early American legal

tradition recognizing parents’ primary authority and

duty to care for, educate, direct, and protect their minor

children.

This historical evidence bears directly on the question presented because it explains why interference with

parental authority has long been understood as a concrete injury. Traditionally, parental authority was understood as an active legal office rather than a remedial

interest arising only after removal of a child. The State’s

creation of procedures that bypass that office therefore

injures parents before the State completes the ultimate

displacement that Petitioners fear. Amici’s perspective

will aid the Court in parsing the historical evidence.

S UMMARY O F A RGUME NT

This case concerns whether fit parents have Article

III standing to challenge a law that treats them as obstacles to bypass when a child seeks certain treatment and

shelter away from home. Washington’s statutory scheme

Pursuant to Rule 37.6, Amici affirm that no counsel for a party

authored this brief in whole or in part and no person other than

Amici or their counsel contributed money intended to fund preparing or submitting this brief.

1

(1)

2

allows a runaway minor seeking “protected health care

services,” including “gender-affirming treatment,” to be

routed through shelter and agency processes that may

withhold ordinary parental notice, limit parents’

knowledge of the child’s location and condition, and refer

the child to behavioral-health services without parental

consent. That scheme interferes with “perhaps the oldest

of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this

Court”: parental rights. Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57,

65 (2000) (plurality opinion). Because Washington’s

scheme palpably invades a historically protected and

present legal right, Petitioners have standing to challenge it.

I. Anglo-American law traditionally recognized infringement on the parent-child relationship as a realworld, legally cognizable injury. Parental authority was

not seen as a narrow possessory interest triggered only

after the State physically seized a child. Rather, it was

understood as a natural and legal office: parents had

both the right and the duty to maintain, educate, govern,

and form their children until they could govern themselves. Blackstone described parental obligations of

maintenance, protection, and education as duties rooted

in nature and Providence. Pufendorf treated parental

government as necessary because children lack the judgment to govern themselves. Locke described parental

power as temporary but real authority grounded in parents’ duty to direct children until reason matures. Kent

and Story carried that tradition into American law, treating parental custody and direction as established, protected legal rights and duties. Related doctrine grounded

in that history persists to this day.

II. That history also underpins an important balance

in protecting parental rights at the intersection of state

3

interests. The parental rights this Court has recognized

in a series of decisions did not spring from twentieth-century policy preferences. See Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S.

390, 399 (1923) (right to “bring up children”); Pierce v.

Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534–35 (1925) (right to

“direct the upbringing and education of children” and “to

recognize and prepare [children] for additional obligations”); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944)

(right to the “custody, care, and nurture of the child”);

Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 233 (1972) (respecting

the “fundamental interest of parents . . . to guide the religious future and education of their children”); Parham

v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584, 602 (1979) (recognizing “the family

as a unit with broad parental authority over minor children”); Troxel, 530 U.S. at 65–66 (right to make decisions

concerning children’s “care, custody, and control”). Instead, those decisions reflect well-established legal and

historical understandings: parental rights are a series of

interconnected rights concerning the upbringing of children, and the State may not presume that ordinary parental disagreement with a child’s preferred course of

treatment makes the parent unfit or displaceable. Nor

may the State create a secret pathway around parental

judgment and then deny that parents are injured until

that secret process has run its course.

III. Historical parens patriae authority confirms the

same limiting principle. Chancery intervened to protect

children only when ordinary guardianship could not

safely do so—such as where a child lacked adequate care

or faced serious danger. Chancery’s temperance prevented the sovereign from substituting its judgment for

that of fit parents. Ordinary parental disagreement with

a child’s preferred course of care did not historically

transfer parental authority to the State or its designees

4

absent an individualized showing. That same tradition

secured parents in the right to know a child’s whereabouts and to resume custody. Notice was therefore integral to the parental office.

The decision below conflicts with that tradition. It

treats parental rights as if they arise only at the moment

of completed state action, while the Founding-era understanding treated parental authority as an ongoing relationship and office that can be impaired by interference,

inducement, secrecy, and displacement. Parents whose

authority is deliberately circumvented are not bystanders. They are the subjects of the law and suffer present

injuries when the State creates incentives and procedures that undercut their ability to direct their children’s

care and upbringing. That point also fits comfortably

within Justice Thomas’s separate opinion in TransUnion

LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021). Whatever the limits of the rule that every private-rights violation supplies

Article III injury, the Founding-era materials strongly

support that rule where the right infringed is the constitutionally protected parental office itself. Cf. id. at 446–

49 (Thomas, J., dissenting).

A RGUMENT

I. The Understanding of Parental Rights at the

Founding, as in the Modern Day, Flowed from a

Deep Common-Law Tradition.

A. The common law imbued parentage with

duties, natural rights, and legally protected

interests.

1. Parental rights are “perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.”

Troxel, 530 U.S. at 65. Historically, children were not

considered self-governing legal actors in the full sense,

5

and parents—not the State—bore the responsibility to

guide them. That premise appears across natural-law

writers, English common-law authorities, and early

American treatises. See 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries

*434 (1765); 2 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law

*189 (1826) [hereinafter 2 J. Kent, Commentaries]; S.

Pufendorf, The Whole Duty of Man According to the

Law of Nature § 2, at 202 (5th ed. 1735) [hereinafter S.

Pufendorf, Whole Duty]; 1 J. Burlamaqui, The Principles of Natural and Political Law § 7, at 29 (5th ed. 1807)

(describing paternal power as a natural trust grounded

in the child’s inability to self-govern); see also Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641, art. 1, reprinted in The

Colonial Laws of Massachusetts 33 (William Henry

Whitmore ed. 1889) (“[N]o man shall be deprived of his

wife or children[.]”).

Parental rights were conceived as a fiduciary-like office grounded in duty: because children lack mature

judgment, parents must maintain them, protect them,

educate them, and prepare them for adult obligations. As

Locke put the point, “all parents were, by the law of nature, under an obligation to preserve, nourish, and educate the children they had begotten.” J. Locke, Second

Treatise of Government § 56, at 241 (6th ed. 1764) [hereinafter J. Locke, Second Treatise]; see also Brown v.

Ent. Merchs. Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786, 828–29 (2011) (Thomas,

J., dissenting) (explaining Founding generations’ belief

in parents’ responsibility to instill “moral prohibitions,

behavioral standards, and a capacity for self-government” in children (cleaned up)).

Blackstone described the parent-child relation as

centered around parents’ obligations of “maintenance,”

“protection,” and “education,” and explained that parental power was “derived from . . . their duty.” 1 W.

6

Blackstone, Commentaries *434, *440. The law respected parents’ authority so they could fulfill those obligations. Id. at *440. Blackstone likewise described the

father as “guardian by nature,” confirming that parental

custody and direction were the ordinary legal baseline

rather than a discretionary state concession. Id. at *449.

Locke gave the same account: parental power arises

from the duty to govern children “during the imperfect

state of childhood,” J. Locke, Second Treatise § 58, at

243, because the child’s want of reason “puts the authority into the parents’ hands” until reason matures, id. §

63, at 248. Pufendorf likewise explained that parental authority and maintenance exist because children do not

understand “how to govern themselves.” S. Pufendorf,

Whole Duty § 2, at 202.

Parental authority was temporary in the sense that it

was contingent on the child’s maturity, but it was real

authority while it lasted. Founding-era sources rooted

that authority in parental duty. Locke, for example,

wrote that a father holds parental authority “only as he

is guardian of his children,” and that such authority

“goes along with their nourishment and education, to

which it is inseparably annexed.” J. Locke, Second Treatise § 65, at 248–49. Because parental authority inheres

in parental duty, Locke reasoned that a father who “quits

care of” his children “loses his power over them.” Id. at

248. Likewise, this Court has explained that the law respects a “dominant” role of parents in deciding their children’s best interests, at least “absent a finding of neglect

or abuse.” Parham, 442 U.S. at 604.

Early American treatises confirmed the existence of

and need for parental authority. Swift, applying the prevailing legal categories of his day rather than opposition

to setting a particular age of majority, described persons

7

under twenty-one as “infants” or “minors” with limited

legal capacity. 1 Z. Swift, A System of the Laws of the

State of Connecticut 213, 215 (1795). Kent explained that

guardianship was necessary because of infants’ “inability

. . . to take care of themselves.” 2 J. Kent, Commentaries

*233; see also id. at *190 (describing parental duty as a

“profession to assist, maintain, and console the child”).

Bouvier similarly explained that infants’ full civil and political rights were withheld because they lacked mature

“moral faculties,” “strength,” and “intelligence.” 1 J.

Bouvier, Institutes of American Law 137–38 (Robert E.

Peterson ed. 1851). Thus, parents—not the State in the

first instance—bore the responsibility to maintain, protect, educate, discipline, and guide children until they

could govern themselves.

2. Parents’ duties to their children imbued parentage

with natural rights and legally protected interests.

Those rights and interests were recognized, rather than

created, by positive law. 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries

*434–40; see also 2 St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s

Commentaries: With Notes of Reference to the Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government of the United

States and of the Commonwealth of Virginia 446 (1803)

(adapting Blackstone’s parent-child framework to early

American law). Thus, the common-law world in which the

Constitution was adopted assumed that parents rightfully occupied the primary office of directing their children’s growth, formation, and care. See Troxel, 530 U.S.

at 65 (recognizing parents’ interest “in the care, custody,

and control of their children” as “perhaps the oldest of

the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this

Court”).

If parental authority was a present legal office, then

legal interference with that office was itself an injury,

8

even apart from measurable consequential loss. Justice

Story made the point in Webb v. Portland Manufacturing Co.: “Actual, perceptible damage is not indispensable

as the foundation of an action. The law tolerates no farther inquiry than whether there has been the violation of

a right.” 29 F. Cas. 506, 508 (No. 17,322) (C.C.D. Me.

1838) (Story, J.). Justice Story later described the parental analogue in terms especially relevant here: a father

could complain when a child was, “by force or fraud, by

abduction or seduction, withdrawn from his power or

protection,” because the parental relation necessarily involved “deep interest, moral, religious, and social.”

Plummer v. Webb, 19 F. Cas. 891, 892 (No. 11,233)

(C.C.D. Me. 1827) (Story, J.); see also Stone v. Wall, 734

So. 2d 1038, 1041–44 (Fla. 1999) (tracing cause of action

for intentional interference with the custodial parentchild relationship to English common-law authorities).

Blackstone grouped such injuries with wrongs to domestic relations. The writ de filio, vel filia, rapto vel abducto lay for a child “tak[en] away,” while the related

ravishment-of-ward action protected the guardian’s custody; but the actionable principle was broader than forcible abduction. 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *140–

41 (1768). Blackstone also described an action against

those who “persuade and entice” a family member “to

live separate” from the household “without a sufficient

cause,” explaining that such injuries attack “the relation

itself” by causing its “breach and dissolution.” Id. at

*139, *142. Winsmore v. Greenbank applied the same enticement principle to persuasion without force, holding

actionable the procurement of a family member’s continued absence from the household. See Willes 577, 583–84,

125 Eng. Rep. 1330, 1333 (C.P. 1745) (holding “every moment that a wife continues absent from her husband

9

without his consent . . . is a new tort, and every one who

persuades her to do so does a new injury”).

Historical remedial tradition likewise treated such invasions as judicially cognizable injuries. Common law

recognized that “every injury imports a damage” when a

person is “hindred of his right.” Ashby v. White, 2 Ld.

Raym. 938, 955, 92 Eng. Rep. 126, 137 (K.B. 1703) (Holt,

C.J.), rev’d, 1 Eng. Rep. 417 (H.L. 1704). Blackstone’s remedial framework made the same point: “In all other

cases,” he wrote, “it is a general and indisputable rule,

that where there is a legal right, there is also a legal remedy, by suit or action at law, whenever that right is invaded.” 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *23; see also id.

at *109 (“[I]t is a settled and invariable principle . . . that

every right when with-held must have a remedy, and

every injury it’s proper redress.”). Chief Justice Marshall adopted that Blackstonian premise into American

law: a government of laws would “certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy

for the violation of a vested legal right.” Marbury v.

Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 163 (1803).

Early Article III usage likewise treated a party’s assertion of legal rights as a “case” or “suit.” See Weston v.

City Council of Charleston, 27 U.S. 449, 464 (1829) (defining “suit” as proceeding in “which an individual pursues that remedy in a court of justice, which the law affords him”); Osborn v. Bank of U.S., 22 U.S. 738, 819

(1824) (defining “case” as where a party “asserts his

rights in the form prescribed by law”); 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §

1640, at 507 (1833) (same). That maxim matters here because the parental office described above was not merely

moral or aspirational but was rather a vested right that

could be vindicated.

10

This Court has rested on the same understanding

that invasion of a legal right is a cognizable injury. See

Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 344 (2016) (Thomas,

J., concurring) (explaining that historical courts possessed broad power to adjudicate violations of private

rights, and that traditional remedies were not contingent

on damages beyond the violation of the private legal

right); Cass R. Sunstein, What’s Standing After Lujan?

Of Citizen Suits, “Injuries,” and Article III, 91 Mich. L.

Rev. 163, 170 (1992); Thomas R. Lee, The Standing of

Qui Tam Relators Under the False Claims Act, 57 U.

Chi. L. Rev. 543, 551–53 (1990). As this Court’s recent

decision in Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski correctly explains, the common law, including Ashby v. White and

Webb v. Portland Manufacturing Co., treated a completed violation of a legal right as a cognizable injury and

allowed nominal damages to redress that invasion. 592

U.S. 279, 285–91 (2021). Given this long-standing history

and tradition surrounding the concept of legal injury, as

explained below in Section III, there is no doubt that the

injury to Petitioners’ parental prerogatives here would

have been considered sufficient basis for federal standing during the Founding era.

B. American

parental-rights

jurisprudence

reflects that longstanding history.

Over the following centuries, American jurisprudence carried forward the Founding-era understanding

of parental rights. Kent described the parent as the ordinary and proper custodian of the child, responsible for

support and education and entitled to the child’s custody,

free from unlawful detention. 2 J. Kent, Commentaries

*189–207; see also Jones v. Tevis, 14 Ky. 25, 27 (1823)

(describing the parent’s right as one “which grows

11

necessarily out of the reciprocal relation of parent and

child”). Story likewise treated parental custody as entrusted to parents on the natural presumption that children will be properly cared for by them. 2 J. Story, Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence § 1341, at 574–75

(1836) [hereinafter 2 J. Story, Commentaries]. Parental

authority was not merely a remedial right asserted after

a child was taken away. It was the ordinary legal arrangement governing the parent-child relationship day

by day.

Early American cases made that legal enforceability

concrete. New Hampshire decisions, for example,

treated enticement and harboring as actionable invasions of parental custody or service. Campbell v. Cooper

recognized redress for enticing minors away and receiving or harboring them while they owed service. 34 N.H.

49, 68 (1856). Sargent v. Mathewson held that a father,

absent forfeiture or relinquishment, was entitled to his

minor child’s services and custody and could recover

against one who deprived him of that right by seducing

away or harboring the child. 38 N.H. 54, 57–58 (1859).

Texas law reflected the same premise. Gulf, C. & S.F.

Ry. Co. v. Redeker explained that, where a father sues in

tort “for enticing away or harboring his minor child,” the

established rule required him to aver and prove the defendant’s knowledge of the child’s minority—not because

the parental interest was absent, but because liability

turned on knowing interference with that protected relation. 67 Tex. 190, 191 (1886).

The day-by-day parent-child relation described

above was not merely philosophical; it was enforceable

against third parties who knowingly detained, harbored,

enticed, or otherwise withdrew a child from parental custody and protection. Indeed, modern tort doctrine

12

preserved that same core rule: one who, knowing the

parent does not consent, “abducts or otherwise compels

or induces a minor child to leave” the parent, or “not to

return,” is liable to the parent for interference with custodial rights. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 700 (Am.

L. Inst. 1977); see also Restatement of Torts § 700 (Am.

L. Inst. 1938). Those principles reinforce the point here:

if Washington’s scheme presently bypasses the parents’

legally protected office, there is an ongoing invasion of a

right historically understood as immediately enforceable.

II. The Original Understanding Encompassed Care,

Custody, Education, Moral Formation, and

Medical Judgment as a Group of Rights Uniquely

Protected from State Intrusion.

Historically, the original understanding tracked parental rights as a series of interconnected rights concerning the upbringing of children. Crucially, those

rights stood together, protected against State interference on the grounds of mere disagreement with parental

choices.

The Founding-era materials did not divide parental

authority into isolated modern categories. “Care,” “custody,” “control,” “education,” and “upbringing” were

overlapping aspects of the same relationship. A parent

who maintained the child’s body, governed the child’s

conduct, trained the child’s conscience, arranged the

child’s instruction, and decided how the child should be

raised was exercising one integrated office. That is why

this Court’s parental-rights cases have repeatedly used

broad language: the right to “bring up children,” Meyer,

262 U.S. at 399, the right to “direct the upbringing and

education of children,” Pierce, 268 U.S. at 534, and the

13

interest in the “care, custody, and control” of children,

Troxel, 530 U.S. at 65–66, all describe the same historical

tradition.

Petitioners’ alleged harms—including, for instance,

loss of notice, exclusion from medical decisions, delayed

reunification, chilled discipline, and altered speech—

should not be treated as disconnected injuries. Pet. 6–16.

Rather, they reflect different ways that the State has impaired an integrated parental office. Blackstone’s account of parental duties of maintenance, protection, and

education treated those responsibilities as mutually reinforcing aspects of the parent-child relationship. 1 W.

Blackstone, Commentaries *434–40. Kent likewise described the parent-child relationship as a single domestic

relation involving custody, education, support, and governance. 2 J. Kent, Commentaries *189–207. American

treatise writers used the same frame: Reeve, for instance, treated “parent and child” as one branch of domestic-relations law, and Schouler’s treatise organized

the law around “parent and child” as a single relation rather than severable interests in custody, education, discipline, or care. T. Reeve, The Law of Baron and Femme,

of Parent and Child, Guardian and Ward, Master and

Servant, and of the Powers of Courts of Chancery 227 (2d

ed. 1846) [hereinafter T. Reeve, Baron and Femme]; J.

Schouler, A Treatise on the Law of the Domestic Relations 303 (2d ed. 1874).

1. The educational dimension is especially important.

Founding-era and early American sources understood

education to include moral and religious formation,

household discipline, preparation for civic and economic

life, and guidance in judgment. See 1 W. Blackstone,

Commentaries *438–40; 2 J. Kent, Commentaries *195.

That history is reflected in this Court’s precedents. See,

14

e.g., Meyer, 262 U.S. at 400 (explaining that a parent’s

“natural duty” is “to give his children education suitable

to their station in life”); Pierce, 268 U.S. at 535 (holding

that parents “have the right, coupled with the high duty,

to recognize and prepare [children] for additional obligations”); Yoder, 406 U.S. at 232 (recognizing the “fundamental interest of parents . . . to guide the religious future and education of their children”). Those cases do not

rest on a narrow right to select a school building. They

recognize that parents have the primary responsibility to

prepare children for obligations the State “can neither

supply nor hinder.” Prince, 321 U.S. at 166. Indeed, this

Court has described parental rights as among the “essential . . . basic civil rights of man,” “far more precious .

. . than property rights.” Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645,

651 (1972) (cleaned up).

That history bears directly on Petitioners’ allegations

that Washington’s scheme has changed how they speak,

discipline, and discuss contested moral questions with

their children. Moral and religious formation were historically core parental functions, not peripheral incidents

of custody. Blackstone treated parental “correction” as

part of the parent’s legal authority over children. 1 W.

Blackstone, Commentaries *441; see also T. Reeve,

Baron and Femme 288 (explaining that, in correcting a

child, the parent acts “in a judicial capacity”).

2. Regarding moral formation, Founding-era sources

likewise reflect that minor children—lacking full independent legal authority—could not ordinarily set personal conscience against parental governance. See J.

Locke, Second Treatise §§ 57–58, at 241–43 (positing

that children cannot understand and direct their own

will, and, therefore, “he that understands for [them],

must will for [them] too”); S. Pufendorf, Whole Duty § 2,

15

at 202 (ascribing to parents the authority to direct children’s actions because children lack discretion “to govern themselves”). Historians of early American households likewise describe discipline and moral formation as

legally protected incidents of parental governance. See

Toby L. Ditz, Ownership and Obligation: Inheritance

and Patriarchal Households in Connecticut, 1750–1820,

47 Wm. & Mary Q. 235, 236–37 (1990) (recognizing

Founding-era “authority relations” in which heads of

households “have the formal right to make final decisions

about internal matters” and to “speak for their dependents in dealings with the larger world”).

This Court’s doctrine tracks that history: Pierce protects parents’ authority to “direct the upbringing and education of children,” 268 U.S. at 534; Prince recognizes

the “private realm of family life which the state cannot

enter,” 321 U.S. at 166; and Yoder recognizes parental

duties to inculcate “moral standards, religious beliefs,

and elements of good citizenship” in children, 406 U.S. at

233. If moral formation and discipline were historically

central aspects of parental authority, then a state-created incentive structure that chills parents’ correction,

counseling, and speech on contested issues burdens the

parental right now—not only after the State completes

some later custodial or medical intervention.

3. The same historical logic applies to medical and

psychological decisions. Although Founding-era medicine differed dramatically from modern medicine, the

relevant principle is not technology-specific. Children

lack mature judgment; parents ordinarily possess the

duty and authority to decide what forms of care will protect the child’s welfare. Children, even adolescents, often

cannot make sound judgments about medical care, and

parents “can and must” make those judgments. Parham,

16

442 U.S. at 603. Recent scholarship confirms that parents’ authority under English tradition and common law

was strong and extended to decisions about “what available medical treatments their children would undergo.”

Nathan J. Wertjes, Parents and Medical Consent: An

Analysis of Parental Rights from the Common Law to

the Founding, 100 Notre Dame L. Rev. 2259, 2274 (2025).

Minors had limited contractual capacity for “necessaries,” which included “physic” or “medical aid.” See 1

W. Blackstone, Commentaries *454; 2 J. Kent, Commentaries *239. But that did not make a minor maintained by

a parent the ordinary medical decisionmaker. Instead,

the “necessaries” principle was seen as an exception to

the general rule that parents furnish, authorize, and control the child’s care. R. H. Tyler, Commentaries on the

Law of Infancy § 56, at 107 (2d ed. 1882); 2 N. Dane, A

General Abridgment and Digest of American Law § 4,

at 18 (1824); 1 S. Comyn, A Treatise of the Law Relative

to Contracts and Agreements Not Under Seal 154–61

(1807).

Modern consent doctrine developed on the same

premise. Cardozo’s root rule was that surgery without

consent is assault. Schloendorff v. Society of N.Y. Hospital, 211 N.Y. 125, 130 (1914). Extended to minors, “the

general rule is that the consent of the parent is necessary

for an operation on a child,” such that an unauthorized

operation is “a technical battery.” Bonner v. Moran, 126

F.2d 121, 122 (D.C. Cir. 1941). Courts applying that rule

held physicians liable for nonemergency treatment of minors without parental consent, while recognizing emergency exceptions. Moss v. Rishworth, 222 S.W. 225, 226–

27 (Tex. Comm’n App. 1920); Zoski v. Gaines, 271 Mich.

1, 9–10 (1935); Rogers v. Sells, 178 Okla. 103, 61 P.2d

1018, 1020 (1936).

17

The rule guarded minors against “the potential overreaching of third parties or the improvidence of their

own immature decisionmaking” by leaving such choices

“in the hands of” parents. Am. Acad. of Pediatrics v.

Lungren, 16 Cal. 4th 307, 315 (1997). Parham stated the

same principle constitutionally: children often cannot

make sound medical judgments, so parents “can and

must” make those judgments for them. 442 U.S. at 603.

Modern mature-minor doctrines and minor-consent statutes are real exceptions, but they are recent statutory

departures from the common-law baseline that vested

ordinary medical decisionmaking in parents. Those exceptions confirm rather than erase the rule.

For the same reason, Petitioners’ injuries do not depend on waiting until Washington completes a later removal, treatment referral, or custodial displacement.

The parental office described in this Section includes notice, custody, moral formation, and medical judgment;

when the State impairs those components, it invades the

historically protected right. Section III explains why

that invasion would have been understood as a concrete

legal injury at the Founding.

III. Washington’s Law Inverts the Founding-Era

Paradigm by Empowering the State to Displace

Fit Parents Without Notice, Consent, or

Individualized Process.

A. Displacing fit parents over disagreement

flouts the history of parental rights.

The historical tradition lets the State protect children, not displace fit parents over disagreement. This

Court’s precedent reflects this tradition, carrying forward into respect for the long-recognized parental right

to the return of a child. This context explains the well-

18

settled parens patriae limitations on intrusion in parental rights.

1. This Court’s precedents reflect this protection-versus-substitution distinction. Stanley rejected categorical

displacement of parents without individualized proof of

unfitness. 405 U.S. at 649, 657–58. Santosky v. Kramer

held that “the State cannot presume that a child and his

parents are adversaries,” and “until the State proves parental unfitness, the child and his parents share a vital

interest in preventing erroneous termination of their

natural relationship.” 455 U.S. 745, 760 (1982). Troxel

likewise applied a fit-parent presumption and refused to

let courts override parental judgment “simply because a

state judge believes a ‘better’ decision could be made,”

striking down a Washington statute that lacked a threshold showing of harm requirement. 530 U.S. at 73. And

Parham, Pierce, and Prince frame state authority as a

protective exception, not a power to transfer ordinary

parental judgment to “some agency or officer of the

state,” because “the child is not the mere creature of the

State.” Parham, 442 U.S. at 602–03; Pierce, 268 U.S. at

535; Prince, 321 U.S. at 166–67.

Moreover, precedent assumes that parents may

make judgments with which children disagree. See

Pierce, 268 U.S. at 534 (recognizing parents’ liberty to

“direct the upbringing and education of children”); Parham, 442 U.S. at 604 (“The fact that a child may balk at

hospitalization or complain about a parental refusal to

provide cosmetic surgery does not diminish the parents’

authority to decide what is best for the child.”). If a State

may treat disagreement itself as the occasion to hide a

child from parents, delay notice, or route the child to services the parents oppose, the parental office becomes

contingent on the State’s approval of the parents’

19

substantive views. That is the opposite of the tradition

this Court has recognized. See Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606

U.S. 522, 559–60 (2025) (recognizing parents’ “critical

right . . . to guide the religious development of their children”).

The State’s attempt to reverse the presumption of parental fitness is itself an injury sufficient to confer federal standing. Petitioners need not wait until the State

has completed the displacement of their authority; the

challenged scheme presently alters the legal baseline by

treating fit parents as presumptively avoidable whenever their judgment conflicts with the child’s preferred

course of care.

2. The right to know where a child is and to resume

custody is part of that same historical understanding of

parent–child relations. Kent explained that a father

“may obtain the custody of his children by the writ of habeas corpus, when they are improperly detained from

him.” 2 J. Kent, Commentaries *194. Blackstone likewise

described remedies for a child taken or withheld from

lawful custody. 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *140–41.

Concealment or withholding itself impaired parental authority. The right to retrieve and resume custody presupposed the ability to locate the child, making notice instrumental to a centuries-old custody-recovery right rather than a modern procedural gloss.

Early American habeas-custody practice reinforces

the same point. To be sure, these cases often arose in inter-parental or private-custodian disputes, not direct

challenges to state displacement. But they remain probative because courts did not disturb custody merely because another decisionmaker preferred a different arrangement; they required a concrete, case-specific basis—such as unfitness, danger, misconduct, or

20

circumstances showing that the child could not safely remain with the parent otherwise entitled to custody. See

United States v. Green, 26 F. Cas. 30 (No. 15,256)

(C.C.D.R.I. 1824) (Story, J.); Commonwealth v. Addicks,

2 Serg. & Rawle 174 (Pa. 1815); Ex parte Barry, 43 U.S.

(2 How.) 65 (1844) (Story, J.).

3. That doctrinal line maps onto the historical one:

parens patriae has its common-law roots in the royal sovereign’s “right or responsibility to take care of persons

who are legally unable, on account of mental incapacity

. . . to take proper care of themselves.” Alfred L. Snapp

& Son, Inc. v. Puerto Rico ex rel. Barez, 458 U.S. 592,

600 (1982) (cleaned up). It was understood as authority

to protect those who could not protect themselves—not

as a license to replace fit parents with state-preferred

decisionmakers.

Some authority, e.g., Ex parte Crouse, approved

broader parens patriae authority over an at-risk child, 4

Whart. 9 (Pa. 1839), but that expansive view was elsewhere repudiated, e.g., People ex rel. O’Connell v.

Turner, 55 Ill. 280 (1870), rejecting confinement of a

child absent crime or adequate legal process. Taken for

the limited proposition relevant here, the history supports a specific-showing requirement before parental

custody or authority can be displaced—not a categorical

rule allowing the State to treat disfavored parental views

as constructive unfitness.

The historical protective power of the sovereign confirms the same line. English Chancery’s jurisdiction over

infants arose from the Crown’s parens patriae responsibility to provide care where ordinary private guardianship could not safely do so—not from a general power to

prefer the State’s judgment over that of a fit parent. In

Falkland v. Bertie, the court’s intervention concerned an

21

infant’s wardship and property interests, reflecting

Chancery’s protective office over those legally unable to

act for themselves. 2 Vern. 333, 342, 23 Eng. Rep. 814,

818 (Ch. 1696). And in Eyre v. Countess of Shaftsbury,

the Chancellor acted where a testamentary guardian

sought control over the education and attendants of an

infant earl after the surviving household arrangements

appeared inadequate, again supplying protective care rather than treating parental authority as categorically defeasible. 2 P. Wms. 103, 118–24, 24 Eng. Rep. 659, 664–

66 (Ch. 1722).

These authorities support the limiting principle missing from Washington’s scheme. The State may intervene

to protect children from unfitness, abandonment, abuse,

neglect, or serious danger, but ordinary parental disagreement with a child’s preferred course of care did not

historically transfer parental authority to the sovereign

or its designees.

So too here, Washington’s scheme injures Petitioners

by making disagreement the operative trigger for curtailing parental prerogatives. A law that treats parental

resistance to a child’s preferred treatment path as a reason to withhold notice, delay reunification, or route the

child through state-approved services does not merely

regulate third parties; it burdens the parents’ own constitutional office and therefore inflicts a present legal injury.

B. Washington’s law lacks the protections

historically understood as necessary to

intrude in parental authority.

Washington’s law departs from the historical baseline in three related ways. First, it changes the ordinary

notice rule for runaway minors. Historically and under

22

the prior statutory arrangement described in the Petition, parents were promptly told where their child was,

how the child was doing, and the circumstances that

brought the child to a shelter. Wash. Rev. Code

§ 13.32A.082(1)(b)(i) (2013); Pet. 4. Under the amended

scheme, when a runaway minor is seeking or receiving

protected health care services—including “gender-affirming treatment”—the shelter may instead notify the

Department, and the Department need only make a

good-faith attempt to notify parents that a report has

been received. Wash. Rev. Code § 13.32A.082(2)(c)(ii),

(2)(d), (3)(a)–(b); Pet. App. 186a–187a. As Petitioners describe the statutory operation, ESSB5599 and SHB1406

together require shelter notice to the Department rather

than parents and remove the prior prompt-notice baseline. Pet. 11–14.

Second, the law permits the parents’ informational

and decision-making role to be displaced at precisely the

moment it matters most. The statutory scheme directs

the Department to offer referrals on behalf of the minor

for behavioral-health services. Wash. Rev. Code

§ 13.32A.082(3)(b)(i). These services may include gender-affirming treatment and may be provided against

the parents’ judgment or before the parents can meaningfully participate. Pet. 6–16; Pet. App. 52a–55a (Tung,

J., dissenting); Pet. App. 37a–48a (VanDyke, J., dissenting). By allowing the State to route a child to controversial treatment without parental involvement, the law immediately impairs the parental office; it does not wait to

injure parents until after treatment is complete. See

Stanley, 405 U.S. at 658 (holding that the State cannot

presume parental unfitness “when the issue at stake is

the dismemberment of [the] family”); Mahmoud, 606

U.S. at 559–60 (holding that parents “need not wait” for

23

damage to occur before filing suit to protect the “critical

right . . . to guide the religious development of their children”).

Parental exclusion from the referral decision itself is

a present injury because the parental right attaches at

the threshold of care, not only at the final procedure.

Parham is the closest analogue: in a behavioral-health

setting, this Court held that parents “retain plenary authority to seek such care for their children,” subject to a

physician’s independent examination and medical judgment, and warned that state-sponsored procedures

should not “discourage parents from seeking medical

aid” for their children. 442 U.S. at 604–05, 620. That

framework locates the initial seeking, admission, and

evaluation decision in the parent, with a neutral medical

factfinder serving as a check—not the child’s veto or the

State’s preference.

The same point follows from informed-consent doctrine and the “necessaries” principle discussed above:

consent must precede evaluation and treatment, and the

parent is the child’s medical procurer from the outset.

Washington injures parents when it excludes them from

care-related referrals, evaluation, counseling, or treatment pathways before any final procedure occurs. To be

sure, the abortion-bypass cases—including Planned

Parenthood v. Danforth, Bellotti v. Baird, and City of

Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health—reflect

abortion-specific departures from the general rule, and

modern mature-minor and minor-consent statutes create additional exceptions. But those exceptions confirm

the baseline rather than erase it: outside such departures, historical and constitutional doctrine place threshold medical decisionmaking for minors in parents,

24

subject to emergency, unfitness, and independent medical checks.

Third, Washington’s scheme creates incentives that

alter family governance. The challenged law creates a

pathway for a child to evade parental judgment by running away to a shelter. Pet. App. 70a–77a, ¶¶11–58; Pet.

App. 71a, ¶16; Pet. App. 73a, ¶¶26–30. This incentive

structure creates a present injury to the parent-child relationship, not speculative future harm. The Ninth Circuit treated these injuries as self-inflicted. Pet. App. 14a–

17a. But where a law predictably burdens the exercise of

a constitutional role, the resulting chill is not self-inflicted in any meaningful sense. It is instead the foreseeable and intended consequence of the challenged law. See

Dep’t of Com. v. New York, 588 U.S. 752, 768 (2019) (permitting standing based on “the predictable effect of Government action on the decisions of third parties”); Virginia v. Am. Booksellers Ass’n, Inc., 484 U.S. 383, 393

(1988) (holding that “self-censorship” is “a harm that can

be realized even without an actual prosecution”).

Historical analogues also show why a state-sponsored

alteration to the parent-child relationship is not a mere

legal abstraction. The enticement and harboring doctrines treated separation from parental authority as

wrongful even when no one physically seized the child.

Blackstone’s formulation covered persuasion or enticement causing a family member to live apart “without a

sufficient cause.” 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *139.

Modern formulations illustrate the same point. For

example, the Restatement (Second) of Torts affords a

parent relief against one who knowingly “compels or induces” a child to “leave” or “not return to” the parent

without the parent’s consent. Restatement (Second) of

Torts § 700 (Am. L. Inst. 1977). Likewise, Prosser

25

described interference with the parent-child relationship

as including not only enticement but also “harboring” a

child and “inducing or encouraging it to remain away.”

See W. Prosser, Law of Torts 692–93 (2d ed. 1955); see

also Butterfield v. Ashley, 60 Mass. (6 Cush.) 249, 250–

51 (1850) (recognizing liability for knowingly enticing or

harboring a minor, without physical seizure). Those rules

matter here because Washington’s scheme predictably

changes how parents discipline, speak, and govern by

creating a state-backed pathway that encourages or facilitates evasion of parental authority.

C. Petitioners’ case presents concrete injury in

the preventive tradition of equity.

Petitioners’ alleged harms (at 8–15, 38–46) comport

with the preventive tradition of equity. Story described

quia timet jurisdiction—literally, “because he fears”—

as relief for a party who “seeks the aid of a Court of Equity, because he fears . . . some future probable injury to

his rights,” and explained that bills quia timet “are in the

nature of writs of prevention.” 2 J. Story, Commentaries

§ 826, at 130; see also 1 J. High, A Treatise on the Law of

Injunctions §§ 1–8, at 2–14 (4th ed. 1905) (noting that the

function of preventative equity is to restrain threatened

illegal acts that would impair or defeat a private legal

right if allowed to occur).

Blackstone likewise stated the general principle that

“preventive justice is . . . preferable in all respects to punishing justice.” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *248

(1769). Bills quia timet belonged to equity’s “ancient jurisdiction,” fixed by the English Chancery principles

that informed Article III equity. See McConihay v.

Wright, 121 U.S. 201, 206 (1887); see also Gordon v.

Washington, 295 U.S. 30, 36 (1935) (noting the English

26

common-law origin of this Court’s equity jurisdiction).

And Justice Thompson put the equitable point directly in

Cherokee Nation v. Georgia: equity may “interpose and

prevent an injury, before any has actually been suffered.” 30 U.S. 1, 78 (1831) (Thompson, J., dissenting).

That preventive-equity tradition fits this case because the challenged law does not merely threaten a collateral consequence. It presently structures a path

around the parental office and impairs the relationship

that equity historically protected. Here, Petitioners allege a sufficiently concrete injury because Washington’s

law curtails the “deep interest, moral, religious, and social, which the parental relation necessarily involves.”

Plummer, 19 F. Cas. at 892 (Story, J.). The challenged

law empowers the State to induce or facilitate a child’s

separation from his or her parents, thereby causing “the

breach and dissolution of . . . the relation itself.” 3 W.

Blackstone, Commentaries *142. Blackstone treated injuries to the relative rights of master, husband, parent,

and guardian as actionable because the wrong committed

through the subordinate relation produced a legal injury

to the superior relation-holder; the action belonged to

the master, husband, father, or guardian even though the

defendant’s pressure or persuasion often operated on the

other member of the household. Id. at *142–43. Plummer

reflects the same structure in the parental context:

there, the complained-of wrong was that the child was

withdrawn from the father’s “power or protection,” even

though the immediate acts operated through the child

and the shipmaster who controlled him. 19 F. Cas. at 892

(Story, J.).

That understanding also explains why Petitioners are

the objects of the challenged law. The law may regulate

shelters and the Department directly, but its object is

27

the parent-child relationship. Petitioners do not seek judicial supervision of generalized policy choices; they allege that Washington’s scheme unlawfully interferes

with their own fundamental liberty interests by disabling

notice, consent, custody, and decision-making authority

that the historical materials identify as private legal

rights. Ultimately, the history and tradition of American

constitutional jurisprudence establish that such interference with parental authority is itself a concrete injury.

That conclusion also draws support from Justice

Thomas’s separate opinion in TransUnion. Justice

Thomas explained that, at the Founding, an “injury in

law to a private right” was itself injury enough to support

suit. TransUnion, 594 U.S. at 449 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Amici do not ask the Court to adopt that principle

across every statutory context. But the principle should

apply with special force where, as here, the asserted

right is a constitutionally protected right rooted in the

common-law tradition. Such recognition would also comport with the TransUnion majority’s reasoning, which

distinguished harms “traditionally recognized as providing a basis for lawsuits in American courts” and left room

for constitutional-rights injuries that historically supported judicial relief. 594 U.S. at 425. Petitioners’ claim

of interference with parental notice, custody, consent,

and moral and medical judgment falls within that historically grounded category.

28

C O NCL USI O N

The Court should reverse the judgment below.

Respectfully submitted.

JUDD E. STONE II

Counsel of Record

CHRISTOPHER D. HILTON

ARI CUENIN

KATHRYN CHERRY

STONE HILTON PLLC

600 Congress Ave.,

Ste. 2350

Austin, Texas 78701

judd@stonehilton.com

(737) 465-3897

SEPTEMBER 2026

Counsel for Amici Curiae

APPENDIX

T ABL E OF A PPE ND IC ES

APPENDIX — LIST OF AMICI CURIAE

LEGAL SCHOLARS ................................................ 1a

i

1a

AP PE ND IX

LIST OF AMICI CURIAE LEGAL SCHOLARS

(Listed alphabetically; Institutional affiliations provided

for identification only)

Stephanie Barclay

Professor of Law; Anne Fleming Research Professor

Faculty Director, Georgetown Center for the Constitution

Georgetown University Law School

600 New Jersey Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20001

Teresa S. Collett

Professor of Law

University of St. Thomas School of Law

1000 LaSalle Avenue

Minneapolis, MN 55403

Elizabeth R. Kirk

Assistant Professor

The Catholic University of America

Columbus School of Law

3600 John McCormack Rd, NE

Washington, DC 20064

Michael P. Moreland

University Professor of Law and Religion

Director, Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion

and Public Policy

Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law

299 N. Spring Mill Road

Villanova, Pennsylvania 19085

2a

Mark L. Rienzi

Professor of Law

Co-Director, Center for Religious Liberty

The Catholic University of America

Columbus School of Law

3600 John McCormack Road, NE

Washington, DC 20064

Steven D. Smith

Warren Distinguished Professor of Law (ret.)

Co-Executive Director (ret.):

Institute for Law & Religion

Institute for Law & Philosophy

University of San Diego School of Law

5998 Alcala Park

San Diego, CA 92110