A judge for the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the state’s COVID-19 mask mandate.

The court found that the complaint was a “shotgun complaint.” It criticized the complaint for supplying “irrelevant factual allegations and legal conclusions,” having “arguments that stray from the statutory and constitutional underpinning of discrete causes of action,” failing to state the capacity to sue, containing “extraneous and confusing material,” and failing to identify “the elements of the cause of action” and the parties entitled to relief in the case.

The court’s most in-depth criticism of the complaint was that it did not specify which public health order caused the injury:

Sixth, the Amended Complaint fails to allege how injuries are fairly traceable to one or both Defendants as to specific Plaintiffs. Parties, causes of action, injuries, causation, and redressability should be specific and match. With the passage of time and the fluidity of the COVID-19 pandemic, it appears that, at the time of filing the Amended Complaint, the Governor had issued at least eight proclamations or orders, and that the State Health Officer had issued at least ten. There may have been more since. Owing to the uncertainty of the facts at any given point in time, the Amended Complaint should separate past alleged sins of Defendants (identifying which Defendant is guilty of which failing) from existing “live” provisions; which past sins are capable of repetition and escaping review; which lead to damages; and which support a declaratory judgment (in other words, as to the latter two, how to redress alleged injuries). The next Amended Complaint should identify the authority to enforce particular orders and should tie that authority to a named Defendant, specifically alleging how that Defendant has enforced or may enforce his or her orders. Additionally, the next Amended Complaint should avoid duplicative counts.

The court gave the plaintiffs 21 days to amend the deficient amended complaint and try to reinstate the case.

The federal court’s dismissal follows the dismissal of a suit that challenged Pennsylvania’s mask mandate. The US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania dismissed the challenge last Friday.