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Piano Man Wins Round Two In Atlantic City Eminent Domain Fight

February 15, 2019

Virginia Couple Scores First-Round Victory in First Amendment Fight

January 24, 2019

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

Leonia Homeowners and Businesses Form Group to Stop Borough’s “Condemnation Redevelopment Study”

A small North Jersey community joins together to stop borough officials from authorizing eminent domain for private development

Leonia, N.J.—Today, residents, small-business owners and supporters in Leonia, New Jersey, announced the formation of Leonia United Against Eminent Domain Abuse (“Leonia United”). The new group is dedicated to stopping the abuse of eminent domain—the government’s power to take private property—which would be authorized as part of the borough’s current “condemnation redevelopment study” of their…

U.S. Supreme Court Rules Unanimously That States Cannot Impose Excessive Fines

Ruling Requires Cities and States—Not Just the Federal Government— To Abide by the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause

In an historic ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court this morning held that the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment protects Americans not just against the federal government, but against states and local authorities too. No matter which state you live in, every level of government must now abide by the federal Constitution’s guarantee that…

Piano Man Wins Round Two In Atlantic City Eminent Domain Fight

New Jersey Appellate Court Rejects State Agency’s Land Speculation And Effort to Condemn Atlantic City Piano Tuner’s Longtime Family Home

ARLINGTON, VA—Atlantic City property owner Charlie Birnbaum, whose longtime family home was targeted for eminent domain abuse, gets to stay put. So ruled the New Jersey Appellate Division in a 29-page published ruling it issued today. The Atlantic City fixture and longtime piano tuner won a landmark victory for property rights today when the court…

New Bill Would End Civil Forfeiture in South Carolina

At a press conference Wednesday, South Carolina lawmakers announced a bill that would abolish civil forfeiture. Should the bill pass, South Carolina would join just three other states—Nebraska, New Mexico, and North Carolina—that have ended this abusive police practice. Under civil forfeiture laws, the government can permanently confiscate cash, cars, even homes, without ever filing…

Driver’s License Revocation Law Drives Tennesseans Into an Irrational Cycle of Debt and Punishment

Institute for Justice and Fines and Fees Justice Center Partner to Support Legal Challenge at Federal Appeals Court

The state of Tennessee revokes the driver’s license of any person who fails to pay fines, costs, and litigation taxes associated with a criminal conviction for a year or more. It does this even when the defendant is too poor to pay. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee struck down the…

IJ to FDA: Milk Doesn’t Have to Come From Cows to Be Called Milk

Late last week, the Institute for Justice (IJ) filed an official comment with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) opposing the agency’s suggestion that non-dairy milks should be banned from using the word “milk” on their labels. “If a consumer is confused about the source of a product labeled ‘almond milk,’ then he has bigger…

Virginia Couple Scores First-Round Victory in First Amendment Fight

Army veteran and wife are suing State Council of Higher Education for Virginia for right to teach job skills

Arlington, Va. — Yesterday, federal magistrate judge Roderick C. Young recommended denying the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia’s (SCHEV’s) motion to dismiss Jon and Tracy McGlothian’s First Amendment challenge to Virginia’s prohibition on their teaching job skills without the agency’s permission, allowing their lawsuit to proceed. “Jon and Tracy should not have to…

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.
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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.
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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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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

Tom Carroll and Hermine Ricketts

Miami Shores Village, Fla., told Tom Carroll and Hermine Ricketts to remove their front-yard vegetable garden or face $50 a day in fines. But trees, fruit and garden gnomes are just fine.

Keena Bean

Keena Bean is a tenant in an apartment home that is currently subject to Seattle’s rental-inspection program. She finds the idea of a stranger looking through her house inappropriate and disturbing.

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.

Colon Health Centers for America

Dr. Mark Baumel, of Colon Health Centers for America, wants to increase the rate of screening for colon cancers. But when Dr. Baumel and his partners sought Virginia’s permission to buy new CT scanners, it denied them a “certificate of need.”

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.

Jim Roos

St. Louis tried to take Jim Roos’ property through eminent domain. Jim protested by painting a giant sign on one of his buildings. The city then tried to censor him.

Heather Coffy

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

Samantha Harris

Samantha Harris hired Sally Ladd, a New Jersey-based entrepreneur, to manager her short-term vacation rental in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. But when Pennsylvania wanted Ladd 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.

Archdiocese of Newark

The Archdiocese of Newark is one of the largest in terms of population in the U.S., with nearly 1.3 million Catholics and 219 parishes. The Archdiocese is fighting a New Jersey law that makes it a crime to sell monuments, such as headstones, to their parishioners.

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.

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.

Grace Granatelli

After obtaining her private certifications in canine massage therapy, Grace started volunteering with rescue agencies and adoption events to provide canine massage for ailing and neglected dogs. She later turned her volunteer hobby into a business, which she named Pawsitive Touch.

Phil Parhamovich

In March 2017, Phil Parhamovich, a musician from Madison, Wisconsin, was pulled over by the Wyoming Highway Patrol and pressured into signing a pre-printed waiver that stated he was “giving” his $91,800 in cash to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. Fortunately, after the Institute for Justice took his case, law enforcement returned all of the cash they had wrongfully taken from Phil.

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.

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.

Norys Hernandez

Norys Hernandez co-owns a home in North Philadelphia with her sister, who resides there. Norys has never been in trouble with the law. But her home was seized after her nephew was caught selling a small amount of drugs outside the home.

Ilumi Sanchez

Ilumi has worked with children since she came to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic in 1995. Although she has a Child Development Associate credential (“CDA”) and was trained as a lawyer in her home country, Ilumi does not have the associate’s degree now required under District of Columbia’s new regulations.

Mary Jackson

Mary is a certified lactation consultation with nearly three decades of experience, including teaching at Emory and Morehouse. But thanks to a new license in Georgia, Mary can no longer work in her current position helping women and children with hands-on breastfeeding advice.

John Rosemond

John Rosemond’s lawsuit defends freedom of speech and freedom of the press from government officials who believe that it can be a crime in America to express an opinion in a newspaper.

Chris Hadraba

Chris 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.

Lisa Kivirist

Lisa Kivirist is a mother, farmer, business owner and avid baker. Lisa typically serves muffins and other baked goods at her B&B for breakfast, but the baked-good ban prohibits her from selling these same exact goods to guests.

Michael Jensen

Michael Jensen would like Dr. Birchansky to perform his next needed eye surgery at the outpatient center next to Dr. Birchansky’s office because it is a safe, less costly, convenient, and familiar environment. Unfortunately Iowa’s CON law is denying him that choice.

Bob McGinnity

Bob and Michael do not know where they will go if they lose their homes. But they do know they have a right to stay and to keep what they have worked all their lives for.

Vincent Blount

Vincent Blount has accumulated $2,800 in fines,and even served jail time, due to Pagedale, Missouri’s system of excessive municipal fines.

Michael Peticolas

Michael Peticolas owns Peticolas Brewing, located in an industrial neighborhood near downtown Dallas. In 2013, Texas passed a law that prohibits brewers from negotiating with distributors for the value of their territorial rights. Instead, the law forces brewers to give those rights away for free. That jeopardizes his plans to expand into other parts of Texas.

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.

Mildred Bryant

Mildred Bryant is 84 years old and living out her golden years in the home she’s owned for 46 years in Pagedale, Missouri. But she faces a real threat of tickets, fines, and imprisonment from the town.

Cynthia Perry

IJ client Cynthia Perry wants to send her daughter, Faith, to a private school in North Carolina, but she cannot afford the tuition on her own. She needs the financial lifeline of an Opportunity Scholarship.

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.

Panna Shah

Panna Shah came to the United States from India in 2006 in search of a better life. She has been threading for more than 30 years but would be unable to thread full-time because she can’t afford to complete Louisiana’s irrelevant training requirements.

Rafael Lopez

San Antonio shut down Rafael’s food truck and threatened him with daily fines of up to $2,000 per day if he continued to vend.

Senator Daniel Ivey-Soto

Senator Daniel Ivey-Soto, a Democrat representing Bernalillo County, carried the Forfeiture Reform bill on the floor of the Senate.

Boaz Brown

Boaz is a full-time student who lives in a rental home that is currently subject to Seattle’s rental-inspection program.

Dan Burgess

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

Regino Soriano

Regino Soriano owns a popular food truck named El Bandolero, but his plans to expand have been significantly restricted by San Antonio’s city’s 300-foot rule.

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.

Michelle and Steven Freenor

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.

Laura Pekarik

IJ client Laura Pekarik is an entrepreneurial dynamo who owns and operates the Cupcakes for Courage food truck.

Ken Quran

Khalid (“Ken”) Quran moved to America in 1997, and now runs a convenience store in Greenville, N.C. But the government seized his entire bank account—more than $150,000—even though he was never charged with a crime.

Heather Russinko

Heather is a single mother of a 14-year-old son. After bringing in baked goods to her son’s school for fundraisers and to his football team, Heather started getting many requests to sell them. But then Heather learned that selling her goods from home was illegal. Heather wants very much to be able to resume selling her delicious goods so she can use the money to support her son.

Jameelah El-Shabazz

In 2011, police raided Jameelah El-Shabazz’s apartment in New York City and found several cups filled with crushed eggshells, which Jameelah uses for religious purposes. Believing the cups were filled with drugs, police arrested Jameelah and her son Akin and held them in jail for a week. They also had her apartment closed . City attorneys, relying on those same discredited allegations about the cups of crushed eggshells, claimed the apartment had been the site of drug crimes, and had her apartment closed under the city’s no-fault eviction ordinance. Unable to fight back in court, Jameelah had to agree to permanently bar her son from her home in order to regain access to her own apartment.

Dela Ends

Dela Ends owns and runs a small, USDA-certified organic farm in Green County, Wisconsin. Selling her home-baked goods would let Dela help support her family, but is illegal under state law.

Teresa Quinones

Teresa Quinones, of Lawrenceville, Ga., is a mother of three young children. Her two oldest children, Audri and Christopher, attend Notre Dame Academy, thanks to Georgia’s Scholarship Tax-Credit Program.

Progressive Radiology

Dr. Mark Monteferrante wants to build a new, top-notch medical facility in Virginia. But under the commonwealth’s certificate of need (CON) program, he first has to persuade government officials that his facility would be “needed.”

Brian Peffer

Brian Peffer owns and operates “Creative Chef on Wheels.” Brian simply wants to provide his customers with the best food and service he can, but Fort Pierce, Florida’s 500-foot ban stops him from competing.

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.

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.

Janice Craig

Janice received a $215 fine for “failure to obey traffic signs or control” in Doraville, Georgia. If she can, Janice now goes out of her way to avoid Doraville.

Jim and Cliff Courtney

Jim and Cliff Courtney have a plan to bring economic prosperity to their small community. Unfortunately, the state of Washington has sunk their plan with a law that requires them to obtain a certificate of “public convenience and necessity” from the state in order to pick up and drop off passengers.

Visibly

Visibly is a Chicago-based internet startup that offers consumers a simple promise: Get a new prescription for glasses or contacts from the comfort of your own home. In most states, Visibly’s technology allows doctors to provide faster and better service to more people—but not in South Carolina.

U.S. Supreme Court Rules Unanimously That States Cannot Impose Excessive Fines.

Institute for Justice

Homepage

Piano Man Wins Round Two In Atlantic City Eminent Domain Fight

Virginia Couple Scores First-Round Victory in First Amendment Fight

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

Andrew Meleta | Press Release | February 20, 2019

A small North Jersey community joins together to stop borough officials from authorizing eminent domain for private development

John Kramer | Press Release | February 20, 2019

Ruling Requires Cities and States—Not Just the Federal Government— To Abide by the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause

John Kramer | Press Release | February 15, 2019

New Jersey Appellate Court Rejects State Agency’s Land Speculation And Effort to Condemn Atlantic City Piano Tuner’s Longtime Family Home

Nick Sibilla | Press Release | February 14, 2019

J. Justin Wilson | Press Release | January 28, 2019

Institute for Justice and Fines and Fees Justice Center Partner to Support Legal Challenge at Federal Appeals Court

Andrew Wimer | Press Release | January 28, 2019

Andrew Wimer | Press Release | January 24, 2019

Army veteran and wife are suing State Council of Higher Education for Virginia for right to teach job skills

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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