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Talkeetna Lawyer Wins Case at State High Court
ALASKA PIONEER PRESS
TALKEETNA -- A local attorney who successfully defended a Talkeetna artist against
California’s milk processors last year won an Alaska Supreme Court ruling on behalf of two
parents in Homer who fought the school district over mandatory tuberculosis testing of their
two children.
The state court’s April 3 ruling held that “Alaskans have a fundamental liberty and privacy
right to determine medical treatments for themselves and their minor children,” according to
attorney Paul Bratton.
Bratton’s office represented Dr. Patrick Huffman and Amy Reedy-Huffman in challenging
the state's right to keep their children out of school because the parents refused rejected the
skin test method of testing for tuberculosis as a health risk.
Dr. Huffman is a Homer naturopathic physician who said he determined that the state's
tuberculosis skin tests could hurt his sons, Stone and Elias Huffman.
Although he signed a school district waiver – a way of allowing children to go to school
without the skin test, the State determined that it was valid only if signed by an MD or an OD,
and not a naturopathic doctor.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District planned to exclude the children from public
school if they did not take the test.
The Huffmans subsequently filed suit. The Huffmans argued that the State's regulation did not
exclude naturopaths from signing the waiver, but that the invasive and possibly harmful test
offended the Huffmans' freedom of religion and denied them the fundamental liberty interest in
choosing the health care for their minor children.
Retiring Alaska Supreme Court Justice Warren Matthews, writing for a unanimous court,
stated:
"We have already held that the Alaska Constitution protects as fundamental rights the ability of
every individual to control her own hairstyle and to make her own reproductive choices. We
believe controlling one's medical treatments falls into the same category of personal physical
autonomy. We now hold that the right to make decisions about medical treatments for oneself
and one's children is a fundamental liberty and privacy right in Alaska."
The court remanded the case to Anchorage Superior Court for further proceedings as to
whether the less invasive sputum test and blood tests for TB can satisfy the state's legitimate
goal in protecting school children from contagious disease without infringing upon the
Huffmans' fundamental liberty and privacy rights.
ALASKA PIONEER PRESS
TALKEETNA -- A local attorney who successfully defended a Talkeetna artist against
California’s milk processors last year won an Alaska Supreme Court ruling on behalf of two
parents in Homer who fought the school district over mandatory tuberculosis testing of their
two children.
The state court’s April 3 ruling held that “Alaskans have a fundamental liberty and privacy
right to determine medical treatments for themselves and their minor children,” according to
attorney Paul Bratton.
Bratton’s office represented Dr. Patrick Huffman and Amy Reedy-Huffman in challenging
the state's right to keep their children out of school because the parents refused rejected the
skin test method of testing for tuberculosis as a health risk.
Dr. Huffman is a Homer naturopathic physician who said he determined that the state's
tuberculosis skin tests could hurt his sons, Stone and Elias Huffman.
Although he signed a school district waiver – a way of allowing children to go to school
without the skin test, the State determined that it was valid only if signed by an MD or an OD,
and not a naturopathic doctor.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District planned to exclude the children from public
school if they did not take the test.
The Huffmans subsequently filed suit. The Huffmans argued that the State's regulation did not
exclude naturopaths from signing the waiver, but that the invasive and possibly harmful test
offended the Huffmans' freedom of religion and denied them the fundamental liberty interest in
choosing the health care for their minor children.
Retiring Alaska Supreme Court Justice Warren Matthews, writing for a unanimous court,
stated:
"We have already held that the Alaska Constitution protects as fundamental rights the ability of
every individual to control her own hairstyle and to make her own reproductive choices. We
believe controlling one's medical treatments falls into the same category of personal physical
autonomy. We now hold that the right to make decisions about medical treatments for oneself
and one's children is a fundamental liberty and privacy right in Alaska."
The court remanded the case to Anchorage Superior Court for further proceedings as to
whether the less invasive sputum test and blood tests for TB can satisfy the state's legitimate
goal in protecting school children from contagious disease without infringing upon the
Huffmans' fundamental liberty and privacy rights.