The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit determined that the abstention doctrine barred it from exercising jurisdiction over a doctor’s lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in response to being charged for violating Iowa law.
Eighth Circuit Judge James B. Loken affirmed a lower court’s determination that the abstention doctrine, pursuant to Younger v. Harris, barred the court from exercising jurisdiction over Dr. Shafik Wassef’s 42 U.S.C. §1983 lawsuit, which he filed in response to the Iowa Board of Medicine charging him with violating state law, after he allegedly improperly accessed patient records.
