Judge rules against Casper doctor’s bid for reinstatement to medical board

CASPER, Wyo. — A federal judge has denied a Casper doctor’s petition to be reinstated to the Wyoming Board of Medicine after Gov. Mark Gordon effected his removal last year.

In February 2024, radiologist Dr. Eric Cubin emailed a letter to members of the state House of Representatives last year in support of “Chloe’s Law,” a bill prohibiting certain gender-affirming procedures for minors.

The bill passed in March 2024. The executive director of the Wyoming Medical Society, a private professional organization, had testified against it, according to federal filings on the case record.

In his letter, Cubin criticized the physicians’ group for adopting a “woke” and “far-left” stance on the bill and failing to properly survey or represent opposing viewpoints among its members.

In April, Gordon wrote a letter to Cubin saying he was being removed from the state medical board. At Cubin’s request, he was allowed to resign.

In August, Cubin sued in federal court, seeking reinstatement and saying Gordon had unlawfully retaliated against his expression of free speech as a private citizen.

Gordon’s attorneys replied that Cubin’s strident expression of politics could impact the appearance of impartiality on the Wyoming Board of Medicine, which has the power to grant or revoke medical licenses and conducts hearings and investigations according to state civil procedure.

Gordon said that certain limitations on free speech are allowed by law for public employees in the interests of maintaining the efficiency and integrity of government bodies like the board of medicine.

Chief U.S. District of Wyoming Judge Scott Skavdahl, in a ruling signed Monday, agreed.

“A provider who falls in this ‘left’ or ‘far left’ camp could reasonably question whether they can get a fair examination should they have to appear before Dr. Cubin,” Skavdahl wrote.

“It was reasonable for Governor Gordon to predict that Dr. Cubin’s extraneous comments to the Wyoming house concerning [the Wyoming Medical Society] and his membership on the board could cause the Board’s impartiality to be questioned and disrupt at least some of the board’s core functions,” Skavdahl wrote later.

The problem was not Cubin’s voicing of his opinion on the merits of the bill, but “the public airing of his dispute with Wyoming Medical Society’s leadership,” Skavdahl wrote.

Skavdahl wrote that Cubin’s grievances with the Wyoming Medical Society, a private organization, did not constitute a matter of public interest, which would have been protected speech.

Skavdahl granted the governor’s motion for dismissal of the two counts pertaining to the First Amendment under federal law and dismissed without prejudice an identical count under the Wyoming state constitution.

Cubin had also sought damages in the suit. Members of the state medical board are paid and appointed to four-year terms by the governor with Senate approval.