Tag: lawsuits

Florida stripper sues state over law raising age requirement

A 19-year-old is suing over a Florida law that raises the age requirements to work in adult entertainment establishments, saying it violated her constitutional rights and made her lose her job as a stripper.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, Serenity Michelle Bushey said she and at least eight other performers were fired from Café Risque, a strip club near Gainesville, because of the state law that increased the minimum age to 21.

The lawsuit, which also includes Café Risque and two adult businesses in Jacksonville as plaintiffs, seeks a permanent injunction stopping enforcement of the law.

“As with similar performers around the state, Bushey earned her living through her art while providing entertainment for the benefit and enjoyment of her audience,” the complaint said. “Plaintiffs have a clear legal right to engage in protected speech of this nature.”

The complaint, which was first reported by the Tallahassee Democrat, names Florida’s attorney general and two local prosecutors as defendants. It was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 7063in May, saying it would deter human trafficking.

But the companies in the complaint disputed that, saying they’ve longemployed adult entertainers, cooks, waitresses and security guards younger than 21 with no instances of human trafficking.

The clubs said they hire performers under 21 to increase the talent pool and attract young adult audiences. Many young entertainers use the job to support themselves through college, they said.

The plaintiffs, represented by Gainesville attorney Gary Scott Edinger, saidthe law violates their First Amendment right to free speech.

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Americans Are Already Sticking It To The Permanent Bureaucracy Just Days After Landmark Supreme Court Ruling

Just days after the Supreme Court struck down the precedent of automatically deferring to bureaucrats, it is now ordering lower courts to reconsider some cases where federal agencies have interfered with the activities of Americans.

On June 28, the Supreme Court overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a case that set a precedent requiring courts to defer to reasonable agency interpretations of a given law when the language used in the law was ambiguous. Now, the Supreme Court has ordered lower courts to review Foster v. U.S. Department of Agriculture and KC Transport v. Secretary of Labor, two cases where judges limited the commercial activities of Americans due to the precedent of deference set under Chevron.

“Our clients may now make their case in court without judges putting their thumb on the scale in favor of the government,” said Paige Gilliard, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, the right-of-center legal nonprofit representing the plaintiffs in both cases. “The Supreme Court’s decision to end Chevron deference is a move to restore fairness in federal courts. Our clients Arlen Foster and KC Transport are among the first beneficiaries.”

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Watchdog sues for ATF records about shooting death of Arkansas Airport Official

The watchdog group Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) records regarding the fatal shooting of Little Rock, Arkansas, resident and Executive Director of the Clinton National Airport: Bryan Malinowski.  

Malinowski was shot and wounded by ATF agents in shootout an ATF raid on his home in March. He died of his injuries. When originally asked for pertinent records, ATF produced only heavily redacted search warrant court filings. 

The lawsuit was filed June 10, 2024, after the ATF failed to respond adequately to an April 16 FOIA request for: 

  1. All emails and text messages sent to and from ATF officials regarding Little Rock resident Bryan Malinowski who died in an ATF raid on March 19, 2024.
  2. All records related to the raid on the home of Bryan Malinowski, including but not limited to, re-operational briefing documents, raid plans, investigative reports, memoranda, warrants and audio and video recordings.

On April 22, 2024, Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to ATF Director Steven Dettelbach, asking for details about “the deadly pre-dawn raid conducted by ATF in Little Rock, Arkansas, while executing a search warrant on the home of Bryan Malinowski, a local airport executive.”

An affidavit, which was unsealed after Malinowski’s death and produced to Judicial Watch, alleged he unlawfully sold guns without a license.

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Louisiana Parents Sue Over Law Mandating 10 Commandments Displays in Classrooms

Last month, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) signed a bill mandating that a copy of the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public school classrooms in Louisiana. The law, House Bill 71, requires that the religious scripture be displayed on a poster or frame sized at least 11 inches by 14 inches and in a “large, easily readable font.” 

Apparently anticipating a First Amendment challenge to the mandatory religious text, lawmakers included several provisions that attempt to strengthen the law against a constitutional challenge. For example, the law prohibits schools from using taxpayer funds to finance the posters, instead directing them to accept private donations.

The law further directs schools to display a context document that describes “the history of the Ten Commandments in American Public Education.” This requirement attempts to undermine the religious nature of the scripture, instead showing how the “historical role of the Ten Commandments accords with our nation’s history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the founders of our nation with respect to the necessity of civic morality to a functional self-government.”

While the text of the law attempts to dodge accusations that it prescribes public schools to display an openly Christian text in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, Louisiana lawmakers openly argued that the law would put religion in Louisiana schools.

“I really believe that we are lacking in direction. A lot of people, their children, are not attending churches or whatever,” Rep. Sylvia Taylor (D–Laplace), a co-author and co-sponsor of the bill, said during a debate over the bill. “So what I’m saying is, we need to do something in the schools to bring people back to where they need to be.” Another sponsor state Rep. Dodie Horton (R–Haughton) said that the bill “seeks to have a display of God’s law in the classroom for children to see what He says is right and what He says is wrong.”

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4 More U.S. States Sue Pfizer Over False COVID Vaccine Claims

Four additional states will follow Kansas’s lead by filing large-scale lawsuits against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. These states allege that the company misled the public regarding the safety and efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine.

Last week, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach announced that he is suing pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for misleading Kansas residents about the safety and efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine.

During a press conference in Topeka, alongside Deputy Attorney General Fran Oleen and Assistant Attorneys General Kaley Schrader and Melanie Jack, Kobach detailed the allegations lodged against Pfizer.

“Kansas is filing a civil suit against the Pfizer Corporation under the Kansas Consumer Protection Act, seeking enhanced civil monetary penalties, damages, and injunctive relief for misleading and deceptive statements made in marketing its COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer also violated previous consent judgments with the state of Kansas, in which Pfizer promised never to use deceptive information to market their products,” said Kobach.

The complaint, lodged today in Thomas County District Court, accuses Pfizer of misleading Kansans about the vaccines’ risks, including potential harm to pregnant women and the risk of myocarditis. The suit further alleges that Pfizer falsely claimed its vaccine was effective against COVID variants, despite evidence to the contrary.

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Lawsuit On Behalf Of Vaccine-injured Seeks To Strike Down ‘Unconstitutional’ PREP Act

A lawsuit filed Tuesday seeks to strike down the PREP Act — the federal law that granted legal immunity to companies such as Pfizer and Moderna for injuries caused by their COVID-19 vaccines and other COVID-19 countermeasures.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, alleges the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act violates the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

Plaintiffs in the suit include the nonprofit Moms for America and individual plaintiffs who were injured by a COVID-19 vaccine, or whose loved one suffered injury or death from a COVID-19 vaccine.

According to the complaint, “This case is about the government’s failure to resolve conflicts involving Americans killed or grievously harmed while receiving healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Defendants are the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and President Joe Biden.

“As even The New York Times has recently acknowledged,” Jeff Childers, attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender, “too many Americans have been injured by the COVID vaccines and other rushed treatments, and now have no recourse, no help and no support. They can’t sue anybody, thanks to PREP.”

“PREP was poorly conceived, badly executed, and gave far too much power to unelected bureaucrats and executive agencies,” he added.

Childers wrote on Substack today that the PREP Act should “be crushed and burned to a cinder in the incinerator of history’s worst ideas.”

The lawsuit asks the court to declare the PREP Act unconstitutional and to declare that the HHS secretary’s actions in implementing the act violate the Administrative Procedure Act.

The suit also asks the court to declare that the plaintiffs can sue companies like Pfizer and Moderna in federal and state courts. It also seeks compensation for attorney fees.

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Supreme Court Turns Away COVID-19 Vaccine Appeals

U.S. Supreme Court justices on June 24 rejected appeals brought over COVID-19 vaccines by Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate running for president.

The nation’s top court rejected an appeal seeking to overturn lower court rulings that found that CHD and its members lacked standing to sue the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its emergency authorizations of COVID-19 vaccines for minors.

The justices also rebuffed another CHD appeal in a case that challenged the COVID-19 vaccine mandate imposed on students at Rutgers University, a public college in New Jersey.

The Supreme Court did not comment on either denial. It included them in a lengthy list dealing with dozens of cases.

“Disappointing that the courts are closed to FDA fraud harming millions of Americans,” Robert Barnes, an attorney representing CHD in the FDA case, told The Epoch Times in an email.

He called for Congress to pass reforms.

Julio Gomez, an attorney representing CHD in the Rutgers case, told The Epoch Times in an email that the Supreme Court’s denials marked a sad day because clarity is needed on vaccines and the Supreme Court’s 1905 decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which upheld a city’s law requiring vaccination against smallpox.

Mr. Gomez pointed to a recent federal appeals court ruling that determined that Jacobson did not apply to a case filed against a vaccine mandate in California because plaintiffs had produced evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Lawyers for Rutgers and the government did not return requests for comment.

In the FDA case, CHD and parents in Texas and Florida argued that the regulatory agency cleared COVID-19 vaccines under emergency authorization despite COVID-19 posing less risk than influenza to children and without adequate clinical testing. The FDA also wrongly promoted the vaccines, the plaintiffs alleged.

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Bankruptcy Trustee to Shut Down Infowars, Liquidate Its Assets to Pay Sandy Hook Families

A bankruptcy trustee on Sunday filed an emergency motion to shut down Infowars and Alex Jones’ parent company Free Speech Systems and liquidate its assets to pay the Sandy Hook families.

Earlier this month a federal judge ordered the liquidation of Alex Jones’ personal assets.

Judge Christopher Lopez approved Alex Jones’ request to convert a Chapter 11 business reorganization bankruptcy to a Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy.

However, a couple of weeks ago the judge dismissed the bankruptcy reorganization of Infowars and its parent company Free Speech Systems.

Legal experts said the Sandy Hook families could go back to the bankruptcy court and demand Alex Jones liquidate his company to pay off the Sandy Hook debt.

On Sunday the bankruptcy trustee said he intends to conduct an “orderly wind down” of Alex Jones’ media company.

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Nonpartisan Election Validity Group Files Landmark Lawsuit in Pennsylvania

United Sovereign Americans, Inc., a nonpartisan, all-volunteer election validity advocate group, and two Pennsylvania residents, have filed a Writ of Mandamus, directed to the following Pennsylvania officials and organizations – Secretary of the Commonwealth, the Bureau of Elections, the Bureau of Election Security and Technology, the Department of State, and the state Attorney General.

They have also named Attorney General Merrick Garland and the United States Department of Justice as additional “Respondents.”

They are claiming that the officials named above are not performing their duty to follow existing laws that safeguard our elections.

“A writ of mandamus is a judicial remedy in the English and American common law system consisting of a court order that commands a government official or entity to perform an act it is legally required to perform as part of its official duties, or to refrain from performing an act the law forbids it from doing. Writs of mandamus are usually used in situations where a government official has failed to act as legally required or has taken a legally prohibited action.”

The Petitioners assert, “The Congress of the United States has outlined the minimum standards which must be maintained by every state in order for a federal election to be considered reliable. As outlined below, in Pennsylvania’s 2022 federal election those minimum standards were not met by commonwealth election officials rendering the certified election results that year unreliable. Respondents in their official capacities engaged in insufficient efforts to ensure that the 2022 performance is not repeated in subsequent federal elections beginning in 2024.”

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Trans-identified male awarded $35,000 by Ontario court after women’s salon refused to wax ‘her’ balls

A Canadian court awarded a trans-indetified male, who claims to be a woman, $35,000 after an Ontario women’s salon refused to wax “her” male genitalia. The salon employee working that day was a devout Muslim woman who refrained from physical contact with men, and the salon owner told the trans woman that they could not find a way to accommodate her request.

Jason Carruthers, owner of Mad Wax in Windsor, told Rebel News that he has 30 days to pay the hefty sum following a six-year battle in court. He has filed for an appeal and launched a fundraiser.

The complainant, identified as AB, filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario in 2018 after speaking to Carruthers on the phone, in which the individual said the waxing services was denied. The court found Carruthers liable for discrimination and “misgendering” the complainant.

The business owner said the complainant AB changed the story, claiming after the fact that only a leg waxing was requested. Carruthers explained that his salon has always waxed transgender clients’ legs, but the caller did not ask for a leg wax.

Carruthers told AB that he did not have any employees available who could provide a “male waxing” service at that time, referring to AB’s biological male genitalia and not the complainant’s gender identity. Hence the point of the complaint.

After AB filed a human rights complaint, Carruthers told reporters that AB had requested “male Brazilian waxing,” a comment that the human rights court used against him.

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