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Denied the Right to Work, Pennsylvania Women Sue to End Unconstitutional Licensing Law

December 14, 2018

Listen to IJ's New Podcast: Bound by Oath

December 4, 2018

Less than 1% of 8,000 charities rated have received at least 17 consecutive 4-star ratings

U.S. Supreme Court Case Takes On Anticompetitive Liquor Laws That Keep Out Newcomers

In Tennessee, you can run for governor after residing in the state for seven years, but you can’t renew your liquor license until you’ve lived there for 10 years

Arlington, Va.—Doug and Mary Ketchum moved to Memphis in 2016 with the dream of buying a business that would give them more time with their 32-year-old daughter, Stacie, who has been severely handicapped since an early age, and who doesn’t have many years left to live, according to their doctor. But, thanks to the actions…

Montana Supreme Court Strikes Down Scholarship Tax Credit Program

Institute for Justice and Parents will appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

Helena, Mont.—Today, by a 5 to 2 vote, the Montana State Supreme Court reversed a lower court to declare that the state’s scholarship tax credit program is unconstitutional. This marks the first time that a state supreme court has struck down such a program. The program provides scholarships to needy families to attend the private…

Denied the Right to Work, Pennsylvania Women Sue to End Unconstitutional Licensing Law

Pennsylvania Cosmetology Board uses irrelevant and old criminal convictions to deny licenses after individuals invest time and money in education

PHILADELPHIA—Two Pennsylvania women denied licenses by the Pennsylvania Cosmetology Board are suing in the Commonwealth Court to end an unconstitutional requirement that stands in the way of careers in cosmetology. Courtney Haveman and Amanda Spillane, who live near Philadelphia, struggled with substance abuse, but have been sober and stayed out of trouble for years. The…

Class Action Lawsuit Against NYC’s No-Fault Evictions Machine Can Proceed

Second Circuit Allows Constitutional Claims To Be Tested

Today, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York improperly dismissed a class-action lawsuit challenging New York City’s extraction of unconstitutional settlement agreements. Through its no-fault eviction program, the NYPD threatened to evict businesses and residents when somebody—even a total stranger—committed a crime at…

Federal Judge Affirms Decision Protecting First Amendment Rights of Tour Guides

Ruling solidifies victory for tour guides denied licenses

Charleston, S.C.—Judge David Norton of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina today affirmed his August 2018 decision protecting the First Amendment rights of Charleston tour guides. The city’s tour guide licensing law was challenged by three would-be tour guides—Kimberly Billups, Michael Warfield and Michael Nolan—who joined with the Institute for Justice…

Food Truck Owners Fight For Right To Do Business In Fort Pierce, Fla.

Food Truck Owners Challenge One of the Most Anti-Competitive Vending Restrictions in the Country

As the owner of the Taco Trap food truck, Benny Diaz has reaped the rewards of hard work and an entrepreneurial spirit. He started out making his unique taco creations from his grandmother’s recipes at a restaurant in Port St. Lucie, Florida. From there, patrons encouraged him to start a business of his own. Benny’s…

Class Action Lawsuit Challenges Seattle’s Mandatory Rental Inspection Law

Seattle Inspection Law Treats Tenants as Second-Class Citizens and Tramples Constitutional Right to Privacy

SEATTLE, Wa.—Today, a group of Seattle tenants and landlords partnered with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to file a class action lawsuit challenging the city’s use of invasive, warrantless searches to inspect rental units. The lawsuit, which was filed in King County Superior Court, argues that the city’s program is a clear violation of the…

Our Issues

Educational Choice

School choice is simply the idea that all parents, regardless of means, should enjoy the freedom to choose what schools their children attend.
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Economic Liberty

The right to earn a living in the occupation of your choice without unnecessary government interference is at the heart of the American Dream.
more on this issue »
First Amendment

We seek to defend the free flow of information—information that is indispensable to our democratic form of government and to our free enterprise economy.
more on this issue »
Private Property

Respecting the right of private property is essential to a just and prosperous society. But government at all levels—local, state and federal—routinely infringe on these rights.
more on this issue »

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CATHERINE KEENER

EMMY NOMINEE

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LITTLE PINK HOUSE

SHE FOUGHT FOR HER HOME. AND YOURS.

ECONOMIC LIBERTY

Occupational Licensing Blocks Americans' Right to Earn an Honest Living.

OccupationalLicensing.com

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November 14, 2018 | Strategic Research

At What Cost

State and National Estimates of the Economic Costs of Occupational Licensing
November 15, 2018 | Strategic Research

Ready to Roll

Nine Lessons from Ending Wisconsin's Home-Baking Ban

Tracy McGlothian

Tracy is an experienced sewer who teaches students how to sew as a hobby, but under Virginia law, she’s not allowed to teach students how to earn a living with sewing.

Dan Burgess

IJ client Dan Burgess drives for ridesharing companies uberX, Sidecar and Lyft and is fighting to defend his economic liberty.

David and Ellen Keith

David and Ellen Keith have lived in Pleasant Ridge since the 1970s, and a daughter, a granddaughter and even two great-grandchildren live next door. But if forced out, they will be left nearly destitute in their retirement.

Bill Von Winkle

Bill Von Winkle’s Fort Trumbull Deli served oversized hoagies to eager customers from 1986 until 2001 when the New London Development Corporation’s actions forced the Von Winkles to shut it down and forgo its income.

Jean Soderlind

Tour guides are storytellers, and the government can’t be in the business of deciding who is (or who is not) allowed to tell stories.

Michael Driesen

Iowa’s certificate-of-need requirement prevents Michael Driesen and his children from receiving future ENT surgeries from Korver ENT because Korver ENT cannot open its proposed surgery center before obtaining a certificate of need.

Charles Clarke

Charles Clarke is a college student, who spent over 5 years to save up $11,000—only to have it seized by law enforcement officials before he was scheduled to board a flight at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport.

Tameka Stigers

IJ client Tameka Stigers is the proud owner of a braiding business, but Missouri’s arbitrary and irrational cosmetology regime threatens her livelihood.

Heather Coffy

Heather is a single mom and has three children she wants to participate in Indiana’s school choice program.

Brent Melton

Brent worked in banking for 42 years before he co-founded Vizaline to provide small community banks with a cost effective way to assess small property assets within their portfolios. But the Mississippi Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Surveyors claimed the company was practicing unlicensed surveying.

Jessica Hadraba

Jessica is one of the owners of White Cottage Red Door in Door County, Wisconsin. When the small business opened a food truck in its parking lot, the Town of Gibraltar’s board, chaired by a local restaurant owner, promptly banned all mobile businesses.

Gajendra Singh

Dr. Gajendra Singh opened Forsyth Imaging Center in 2017 to provide X-rays, ultrasounds, MRI scans, and other services at affordable prices. But Dr. Singh is stymied by North Carolina’s “certificate of need” laws.

Bernardo Soriano

Bernardo has plans to grow his food truck business, but San Antonio’s 300-foot rule is making it very difficult for him to realize his goals.

Thomas Halsnik

IJ client Thomas Halsnick is a limousine driver and entrepreneur who is required to charge consumers $50 a ride—no matter how short the ride—even though he want to charge less.

Valarie Whitner

Valarie has received a set of warnings from Pagedale, threatening her with fines and fees for alleged violations. She was even arrested in front of her home and taken to Pagedale city hall because of an unspecified ticket.

Chip McElroy

Chip owns Live Oak Brewing, based in Austin, Texas. Established in 1997, Live Oak has been brewing craft beer long before its current surge in popularity. Now he is fighting a Texas law that forces craft brewers to give up millions of dollars of valuable property to politically connected beer distributors.

Josh Craven

Josh grew up in Pleasant Ridge and he cannot realistically afford to own a home anywhere else.

Robert and Rebecca McCaughtry

Under Red Wing, Minn.’s rental inspection ordinance, it is easier for the government to force its way into the homes of law-abiding citizens than it is to search the home of a suspected criminal. Robert and Rebecca joined a lawsuit to stop these unreasonable and intrusive inspections of their private residential properties.

Jane Astramecki

IJ client Jane Astramecki, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu, runs a home baking business. But Minnesota’s restrictive cottage food law bans her from earning more than $5,000 a year and from selling her treats at venues other than farmers’ markets and community events.

Larry Miller

Larry Miller has been fighting for the rights of Atlanta’s vendors for the past twenty-five years.

Jeana and Jack Horner

Jeana and Jack Horner are among the hundreds of people each year who find themselves caught in Indianapolis’s forfeiture machine.

Rhett Keisler

Rett owns Revolver Brewing, south of Fort Worth. He is fighting a Texas law that forces brewers to give up their distribution rights to distributors for free. Even worse, distributors can then sell those rights to other distributors and pocket the money.

Sally Ladd

Sally Ladd is a New Jersey-based entrepreneur who provides short-term vacation property management services in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. But after Pennsylvania wanted her to obtain a real-estate broker’s license, which requires her to spend three years working for an established broker, Sally felt forced to shut down her business.

Sung Cho

Sung Cho owns and operates Super Laundromat and Drycleaners, one of the largest laundromats in Manhattan. Sung could be evicted, and his business closed, simply because his business was the site of a crime. The identity of the criminals was beside the point.

Aimee and Heath Hairr

Aimee and Heath Hairr have five adopted children. Their oldest, Nolan, was floundering in his public school and endured intense bullying. The Hairrs just want Nolan to have a safe learning environment and for their other children to have the same.

Susette Kelo

Susette is the Kelo in Kelo v. New London. She led her neighbors in a seven-year battle to save their homes from being taken by the government for private development, culminating in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2005.

Arlene Harjo

Arlene Harjo entered the world of civil forfeiture in April 2016, when her son, Tino, was arrested while driving her two-year-old Nissan Versa.

Matthew Bentley, Joseph Briere and Wesley Williams

Bentley, Williams, and Briere live with their three roommates in Northwest Seattle and objected to the city’s warrantless rental inspection.

Esteban Narez

Esteban Narez, 26, grew up in Watsonville, California with his mother and two sisters. Esteban withdrew from high school his senior year due to a major injury. He hasn’t been able to get a GED because the medical bills and his family’s finances have forced him to work full-time ever since. Esteban wants to train as a farrier, but California won’t let him.

Ushaben Chudasama

Ushaben used to thread part-time at the Threading Studio & Spa near New Orleans, often filling in for licensed estheticians when they were unable to work. But after state regulators ordered the business to terminate its unlicensed threaders, Ushaben is no longer permitted to thread in the studio.

Doug and Mary Ketchum

Doug and Mary Ketchum moved to Tennessee to purchase an historic liquor store that would let them take care of their 32-year-old daughter, Stacy, who suffers from cerebral palsy. But they can’t get a liquor license, thanks to the state’s strict residency requirements.

Isis Brantley

For decades, Isis Brantley has fought for her right to braid hair and to pass on her knowledge to others. She successfully sued the state of Texas after it attempted to force her to turn her braiding school into a barber college.

Jason and Jacki Wiebesick

Jason and Jacki have owned their property in Golden Valley, a suburb of Minneapolis, for decades. But the city hasn’t respected their tenants’ wishes and instead has tried to obtain unconstitutional “administrative” warrants to force its way inside.

Summit Christian Academy

Summit Christian Academy is a private, nonprofit K-12 school located in Spokane, Washington. The school applied to participate in the state’s Work-Study Program, but was denied, simply because of its religious affiliation.

Pat Raynor

Pat Raynor, a lifelong hairstylist, became interested in working from home after her husband Harold passed away in 2009. But under Nashville’s ban on home-based businesses, Pat was forced to shut down her home hair salon.

Lyndon McLellan

Lyndon McLellan has spent more than a decade running L&M Convenience Mart in rural North Carolina. Then, without any warning, agents from the IRS seized his entire bank account, totaling more than $107,000.

Heather Kokesch Del Castillo

Heather Kokesch Del Castillo is a health coach in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, who joined with the Institute for Justice to defend her First Amendment right to give dietary advice.

Mats Järlström

Mats Järlström is a Swedish-born electronics engineer and has the equivalent of a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. After his wife received a ticket based on a red-light camera in Beaverton, Oregon, Mats began criticizing the math behind red-light cameras. But Oregon’s engineer-licensing board considered Mats’ traffic-light critiques to be the unlicensed practice of engineering and fined him $500.

James Jenkins

James Jenkins, along with his husband, is the co-owner of Valancourt Books in Richmond, Virginia, which specializes in reviving and popularizing rare, neglected, and out-of-print fiction.

Troy King

After working in the food service industry for several years, Troy King purchased his first food truck in 2014—a gourmet chicken food truck called Pollo. But in September 2016, Troy was operating Pollo in downtown Louisville when a city inspector threatened to issue a citation and tow his truck simply because Troy was serving customers within 150 feet a restaurant that also serves chicken. Troy was forced to abandon his vending location and his customers.

Courtney Haveman

Courtney wanted to become an esthetician so she could earn extra income and have flexible hours to spend with her son. But the state cosmetology board denied Courtney a license because of her criminal record, which has nothing to do with cosmetology.

Robin Lamp

Robin Lamp is a single parent whose two daughters attend Christian academy in Georgia.

Dr. Lee Birchansky

Recognized as one of the top ophthalmologists in the country, Dr. Lee Birchansky seeks to offer the kind of medical innovation Iowans need.

Lara Allen

Lara Allen’s four children, all of whom are gifted and/or have special needs, need more than what the public schools can offer.

Sage Lewis

Sage Lewis pioneered an innovative community for the homeless on his commercial property at 15 Broad Street in Akron, Ohio. His nonprofit, The Homeless Charity, provides tents, food, showers, computers, and other resources to 44 residents. But Akron is trying to eliminate his work through the city’s zoning code.

U.S. Supreme Court Case Takes On Anticompetitive Liquor Laws That Keep Out Newcomers

Institute for Justice

Homepage

Denied the Right to Work, Pennsylvania Women Sue to End Unconstitutional Licensing Law

Listen to IJ's New Podcast: Bound by Oath

Less than 1% of 8,000 charities rated have received at least 17 consecutive 4-star ratings

John Kramer | Press Release | December 14, 2018

In Tennessee, you can run for governor after residing in the state for seven years, but you can’t renew your liquor license until you’ve lived there for 10 years

Andrew Wimer | Press Release | December 12, 2018

Institute for Justice and Parents will appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

Andrew Wimer | Press Release | December 12, 2018

Pennsylvania Cosmetology Board uses irrelevant and old criminal convictions to deny licenses after individuals invest time and money in education

Conor Beck | Press Release | December 11, 2018

Second Circuit Allows Constitutional Claims To Be Tested

Andrew Wimer | Press Release | December 10, 2018

Ruling solidifies victory for tour guides denied licenses

Conor Beck | Press Release | December 6, 2018

Food Truck Owners Challenge One of the Most Anti-Competitive Vending Restrictions in the Country

J. Justin Wilson | Press Release | December 4, 2018

Seattle Inspection Law Treats Tenants as Second-Class Citizens and Tramples Constitutional Right to Privacy

Our Issues

Educational Choice

Economic Liberty

First Amendment

Private Property

IJ IN THE MOVIES

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE

CATHERINE KEENER

EMMY NOMINEE

JEANNE TRIPPLEHORN

LITTLE PINK HOUSE

SHE FOUGHT FOR HER HOME. AND YOURS.

ECONOMIC LIBERTY

Occupational Licensing Blocks Americans' Right to Earn an Honest Living.

OccupationalLicensing.com

SUPPORT OUR WORK

The National Law Firm for Liberty

Our Videos

Our Research

November 14, 2018 | Strategic Research

State and National Estimates of the Economic Costs of Occupational Licensing

November 15, 2018 | Strategic Research

Nine Lessons from Ending Wisconsin's Home-Baking Ban

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