Public Health and Parens Patriae: How Attorneys General Can Preserve States’ Exclusive Litigation Authority

By Doug Peterson, Of Counsel with Keating O’Gara in the firm’s Lincoln, NE office. Mr. Peterson served as Nebraska’s 32nd attorney general from 2015 to 2023, holding leadership roles with the National Association of Attorneys General, co-chairing its Consumer Protection and Antitrust Sections. 

This Working Paper examines States’ authority to sue on behalf of their citizens and the tensions that arise when States’ political subdivisions (i.e., municipalities, counties, parishes) assert such authority in civil litigation.

The Working Paper features a Foreword by the Attorney General of South Carolina, Alan Wilson. General Wilson Wilson was elected South Carolina’s 51st Attorney General on November 2, 2010, re-elected to a second term on November 4, 2014, re-elected to a third term on November 6, 2018, and re-elected to a fourth term on November 8, 2022.

Click the “Download the PDF” button above to read the Working Paper.

Click here to read the press release