Issue

Whether Bullitt County Board of Health has the authority to promulgate a countywide smoke-free policy that regulates indoor smoking in public buildings, workplaces and other specified public areas.

Overview

In March 2011, the Bullitt County Fiscal Court and eight Bullitt County municipalities sued the Bullitt County Board of Health in Kentucky state court, challenging the local health board’s regulatory authority to pass a smoke-free policy prohibiting smoking in most public places and places of employment.  Despite the legal challenge, the county board of health voted to pass the regulation, and a few weeks later a group of businesses filed another lawsuit in federal district court, also claiming, among other things, that the board exceeded its statutory and regulatory authority in passing the smoke-free regulation.  In mid-September 2011, a Bullitt County circuit court judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the state court case, concluding that board lacked the statutory and regulatory authority to adopt a smoke-free regulation and, thus, the regulation was null and void; and enjoining the board of health from enforcing the regulation. The Bullitt County Board of Health appealed.

In February 2012, the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium and the Kentucky Center for Smoke-free Policy recruited twelve nonprofit public health organizations to join an amicus brief supporting the Bullitt County Board of Health.  The brief argues that Bullitt County’s smoke-free Regulation 10-01 protects the public health and welfare of its citizens by decreasing the risk of death and disease arising from exposure to secondhand smoke in public places and places of employment, and that the regulation is well within the statutory authority delegated to Kentucky Boards of Health.

On December 7, 2012, the Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed the lower court decision and upheld the Board of Health’s regulation prohibiting smoking in most public places and places of employment. The court ruled that local boards of health in Kentucky have broad authority to promulgate rules and regulations concerning public health as an authorized delegation of the state’s police power.

The plaintiffs appealed and the case is now before the Kentucky Supreme Court.  In December 2013, the Consortium, the Kentucky Center for Smoke-free Policy and fourteen other public health organizations submitted a second amicus brief, arguing again that Bullitt Count’s smoke-free regulation protects the public health and that the regulation is well within the statutory authority delegated to Kentucky boards of health.

Status

On June 19, 2014, the Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Bullitt County Board of Health exceeded its statutory authority in adopting the countywide smoke-free regulation and that the regulation was thus invalid.