Human experimentation rules
Norman Carl Rabin v. Department of Health and Human Services
In brief
- Where it stands
- Dismissed
Petition denied.
- What it’s about
- Norman Carl Rabin and the other petitioners ask the Supreme Court to review the Second Circuit’s refusal to reinstate their appeal challenging federal rules for human experiments.
- Who it affects
- Rabin and the other petitioners did not get Supreme Court review of the appeals court’s decision, and the Supreme Court did not decide their claims.
Summary: written with AI from the case record.

What it's about
They argue the appeals court issued its mandate before its own deadline and demanded too much proof without first letting them gather evidence, including for their claim that the rulemaking violated procedural rights.
Rabin and the other petitioners challenge federal rules for human experiments and say the Second Circuit should have reinstated their appeal.
Question presented
1. Whether a Federal Court of Appeals departs from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings by denying a motion to reinstate a plausibly meritorious appeal involving constitutional challenges to federal human-experimentation rules, and where the Court issued its mandate prior to the expiration of the filing deadline set by its own Local Rules? 2. Whether not reinstating this type of appeal also creates a ‘ Manifest Injustice ’ — as defined by the Court ’ s own precedents in Lattanzio v. COMT A, 481 F.3d 137 (2d Cir. 2007) and grounded upon the 1967 enactment notes to FRAP Rule 2? 3. Whether the standard of ‘ Proof absent jurisdictional discovery as applied to Plaintiffs-Appellants, in the U.S. District Court (in the context of legal standing), but also in the federal Appellate Court (concerning making a showing of Extraordinary Circumstances), is unjust or inappropriately too high, for this particular case, which is a non-monetary federal rulemaking case, challenging the Revised Common Rule rulemaking ’ s failure to enact more protective federal rules to protect citizens from non-consensual human experimentation, and also where Petitioners ’ “ Claim 1 ” involves a violation of procedural rights by the rulemaking?
Documents
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Sources
Primary materials plus reporting. Best-effort analysis: this explainer relies on a mix of primary materials and trusted secondary sources. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.