The case was originally filed in 2009 by two scientists, Theresa Deisher and James Sherley, after the Obama administration reversed prohibitions on embryonic stem cell research. It was argued that the expansion of allowable embryonic stem cell research jeopardized their ability to gain government funding for their area of research, which only involves adult stem cells that have matured into cells specific for certain types of tissues. 

In August 2010, J. Lambeth said the lawsuit was likely to succeed and issued an immediate ban on federal spending for such research while the case continued. The government appealed that decision, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit stopped the ban from going into effect while the case was reviewed. In April, the circuit court decided in favor of the government’s position, sending the case back to J. Lambeth. 

In J. Lambeth’s opinion, he explains that he is bound by the appeals court’s interpretation of the law and, in following with the court’s reasoning and conclusions, further explains that the “defendants reasonably interpreted the Dickey-Wicker Amendment to permit funding for human embryonic stem cell research because such research is not ‘research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed’.”