In Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Surgical Health Services v. City of Lubbock, (ND TX, June 1, 2021), a Texas federal district court dismissed on standing and Pullman abstention grounds a pre-enforcement challenge to a Lubbock, Texas ordinance declaring the city a "sanctuary city for the unborn." The ordinance includes a private enforcement provision that comes into effect only upon certain future events, such as the overruling of Roe v. Wade. The court said in part:
Although the Court assumes that plaintiffs can show injury that stems from the city's passage of the ordinance's private-enforcement provision, they fail to show that an order from the Court would redress the injury. Plaintiffs admit that this Court cannot force the city to revoke or amend its ordinance.... They also concede that any order from this Court regarding the ordinance's constitutionality or validity would not bind the state courts that would hear the private-enforcement suits.... Instead, plaintiffs claim that a declaration of invalidity from the Court may deter lawsuits and may help convince state courts of plaintiffs' arguments.... But this potential relief is too speculative to show, as they must, that the Court's order would likely redress their injury....
"[U]nder the Pullman doctrine, a federal court should abstain from exercising its jurisdiction 'when difficult and unsettled questions of state law must be resolved before a substantial federal constitutional question can be decided.'"...
Therefore, even if the Court had jurisdiction, the Court would dismiss the case without prejudice so that the state courts could resolve whether Texas law prohibits cities from enacting private rights of action or whether state law preempts any component of the ordinance.
