Deborah J. Fox

Fox successfully defended government entities in cases in which two churches and a gym are fighting orders to close or limit operations because of the coronavirus.

"The first two are pastors and congregations who want to have in-person church. The last is a mega-fitness center who wants to have in-person classes and say they have a constitutional right to work out on an elliptical machine," she said. Gish v. Newsom et al., 2020 WL 1979970 (C.D. Cal. filed April 24, 2020); Cross Culture v. Newsom. et al., 2020 WL 2121111 (E.D. Cal. filed May 5, 2020); Best Supplement Guide v. Newsom et al., 2020 WL 2615022 (E.D. Cal. May 22, 2020).

But Fox isn't one to gloat. She offered high praise for her main adversary, Harmeet K. Dhillon of Dhillon Law Group in San Francisco, who has brought most of the challenges to the emergency orders.

"She's a very effective advocate and she's very rational," Fox said. "But she's lost across the board -- the district court, the 9th Circuit and even the Supreme Court of the United States. Even Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh has deferred to the ability of the public entities to decide how they're going to combat this deadly virus."

Fox's victories mostly rest on a 1905 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that local governing bodies had the right to mandate vaccinations during a smallpox outbreak. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905).

"It is within the police power of a state to enact a compulsory vaccination law, and it is for the legislature, and not for the courts, to determine," the court wrote.

Nevertheless, Fox said she has sympathy for the plaintiffs she is fighting.

"There's some folks who try to pit this as a political and ideological debate and demonize people, but these plaintiffs have very heartfelt religious convictions," she said. "They're well intended people of faith but it is the responsibility of public health to protect the public. The consequences are extremely high."

-- Nick Kipley