Mark Shirley and Ole Time Smokehouse v. Town of Farmville, et al.
Mark Shirley was making a good living as the general manager of an auto dealership in Eastern North Carolina, but even his comfortable salary couldn’t feed his lifelong passion for cooking. So, in September 2019, after a year of exhaustive research into the restaurant industry, Mark left his profitable job to launch a food truck business call ...
Celeste Mohr, D.D.S., et al. v. Texas State Board of Dental Examiners et al.
Dr. Celeste Mohr began practicing teledentistry as a way to pursue a livelihood while also staying at home to care for her two autistic children. She offers her remote dental consultations via TheTeleDentists, a startup teledentistry platform that offers direct-to-consumer services. As with other types of telemedicine, teledentistry uses video, pho ...
Ursula Newell-Davis & Sivad Home and Community Services, LLC v. Courtney N. Phillips, et al.
Ursula Newell-Davis cares deeply for those most in need in her New Orleans community. After two decades of working with special needs children, she decided to launch a company that would provide much-needed respite services to this vulnerable population. Inspired by her experience as a special needs parent herself, Ursula wants to give these childr ...
Crystal Waldron and Club 519 v. Governor Roy A. Cooper
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper unilaterally declared a state of emergency that only he is authorized to end. Since then, the governor has issued a series of executive orders that allow nearly every establishment that sells alcoholic beverages to remain open but that force most private bars (establishments whic ...
Anthony Barilla v. City of Houston
Anthony (Tony) Barilla is a highly accomplished accordionist who wants to busk—that is, perform in public for tips—on the streets of Houston, Texas. A city law, however, prohibits busking activities everywhere except Houston’s very small Theater District. There, artists may accept tips for their performances, but only after completing an ...
Creighton Meland Jr. v. Shirley N. Weber, Secretary of State of California
Last year, California enacted a woman quota law, which requires all publicly traded companies that are incorporated or headquartered in the state to have a certain number of females on their boards of directors. This law ignores that women are making great strides in the boardroom without a government mandate, and therefore perpetuates the myth tha ...
Legacy Medical Transport, LLC and Phillip Truesdell v. Adam Meier, et al.
Phillip Truesdell and his family launched Legacy Medical Transport in 2017 with one ambulance and high hopes of thriving in the wake of job losses. Their hard work paid off—today, their non-emergency ambulance company in Aberdeen, Ohio, has grown to seven vehicles. Located just miles from the Kentucky border, the company often takes clients from ...
Peggy Fontenot v. Eric Schmitt, Attorney General of Missouri
Peggy is a member of the Virginia-recognized Patawomeck Indian tribe through her mother’s line and is certified as an artisan by the federally recognized Citizen Potawatomi Nation through her father’s line. In addition to her numerous awards, she has shown and sold her art in museums and galleries throughout the United States, including ...
Minnesota Assoc. Builders and Contractors v. Minneapolis Public School District
With 75 buildings and 35,000 students, there’s plenty of construction work in the Minneapolis School District. But many hardworking Minnesotans never get a shot at a school project. In 2004, the district adopted a project labor agreement, or PLA, that favors politically powerful unions over nonunion contractors. This type of agreement forces ...
D.M. & Z.G. v. Minnesota State High School League
When 16-year-old Dmitri Moua discovered dancing, he found a new way to be a part of a team and build his self-confidence. But when he wanted to join his high school’s competitive dance team, he was denied because he is a boy. Dmitri’s school is in the Minnesota State High School League—whose bylaws declare competitive dance a “g ...
Taylor v. Polhill, et al
In Florida, you need a license to sell hearing aids. Dan Taylor of Melbourne, Florida, gave up his license after 30 years, because Florida’s outdated regulations were made for older models, not the updated, technologically sophisticated models he and his customers prefer. In a federal lawsuit on behalf of Dan, PLF argues that Florida’s ...
Chef Geoff’s v. The Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority
Award-winning restaurateur Chef Geoff Tracy owns restaurants in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Only Virginia, however, restricted the way Chef Geoff advertises happy hour specials. While state law allowed businesses to offer happy hour, it banned advertising happy hour prices, as well as the use of any terms other than “happy hour& ...
Nemhauser v. City of Mount Dora
What started as artistic expression in Mount Dora, Florida, escalated into a bureaucratic nightmare for Nancy Nemhauser and Lubomir Jastrzebski. When the couple painted a van Gogh-style “The Starry Night” mural on a wall outside their house, the city declared the art “graffiti” because it didn’t match the color of the ...
Book Passage v. Becerra
In the wake of a First Amendment challenge by Bay Area book seller Bill Petrocelli and his renowned store, Book Passage, California has rescinded the state’s onerous “certificate of authenticity” requirement for the sale of autographed books. The regulation would have made it extremely risky, if not impossible, for stores to sell ...
Minerva Dairy v. Brancel
Minerva Dairy, and its President, Adam Mueller, challenged a Wisconsin law that prevents butter makers from outside the state from selling their products in Wisconsin unless they go through an arduous and costly process of getting their butter “graded.” Grading has nothing to do with quality or safety; it is graded by taste, as determin ...
Fontenot v. Hunter, Attorney General of Oklahoma
Peggy Fontenot is an award-winning American Indian photographer and artist, specializing in hand-made beaded jewelry and cultural items. A member of Virginia’s Patawomeck tribe, she has made her living for 30 years traveling the country to show and sell her American Indian art. She regularly participated in Oklahoma art festivals until local, ...
Associated Builders and Contractors-California Cooperation Committee v. Becerra
California law requires contractors on public projects to pay employees the “prevailing wage” (generally equal to a union wage) through a combination of cash wages and other benefits, including making donations to “industry advancement” advocacy organizations. A new law allows only pro-union organizations to receive such don ...
Niang v. Carroll
Missouri law requires African-style hair braiders to be licensed as a cosmetologist or barber. To obtain such a license, an applicant must pass a background check, undergo thousands of hours of training (costing thousands of dollars to attend special schools), and pass an exam. Neither the cosmetology nor barbering curricula teach African-style hai ...
T.H. v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation
In 2007, the expectant mother of twins used a generic form of an asthma medication for the off-label purpose of preventing pre-term labor. Novartis was the former manufacturer of the brand-name version of the medication until it sold its rights to the product in 2001. The twins were diagnosed with autism in 2012, allegedly tied to the medication. T ...
Siena Corporation v. Mayor and City Council of Rockville, Maryland
Siena Corporation wanted to build a self-storage facility in Rockville, Maryland, but was thwarted when the city, at the behest of NIMBY neighbors, adopted a last-minute zoning change preventing the project. Siena sued but the district court upheld the zoning change as a “rational” exercise of the city’s police power. Siena appeal ...
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