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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

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

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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

Benigno Diaz

Benny Diaz owns and operates the “Taco Trap” food truck. But he can’t sell his tacos in Fort Pierce, Florida because the city bans all food trucks within 500 feet of a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

Elmer Kilian

IJ client Elmer Kilian has been preparing taxes for the past 30 years on his dining room table. He fought and successfully defended his right to earn an honest living without getting permission from the IRS.

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.

John Heiderich and Gwen Lee

John Heiderich and Gwendolyn Lee, have owned and operated rental properties in Seattle for more than forty years. They are unwilling to let the city intrude into their tenant’s home and are committed to helping their tenant protect her constitutional rights.

Shelia Champion

Shelia Champion lives in Hazel Green, Alabama and operates a cemetery, The Good Earth Burial Ground.

David Diaz

David Diaz, a custodian at a synagogue in the Bronx, lives with members of his family in an apartment near the Bronx Zoo. The NYPD raided the apartment in 2013, entering with guns drawn, and arrested all the adults present, but did not charge anyone.

Salamata Sylla

The Washington Department of Licensing ordered IJ client Salamata Sylla to obtain a time-consuming and irrelevant cosmetology license for hair braiding. IJ sued on her behalf and forced the Department to adopt a rule exempting braiders.

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.

Scott Fisher and Gone Broke Gaming

Scott Fisher runs a video game store in Orange Park, Florida, just outside Jacksonville. To boost foot traffic and visibility for his business, he set up a giant inflatable Mario, only to run afoul of the town’s sign code. Scott has joined with the Institute for Justice to defend his First Amendment rights.

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.

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.

Ron Hines

The First Amendment should apply to licensed professionals who give advice over the Internet.

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.

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.

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.

Nikki McGowan

Nikki McGowan owns and operates the Madame BBQ food truck. She is challenging Baltimore’s 300-foot rule because it prevents her from successfully operating in the city.

Lissette Waugh

Nevada is trying to force makeup artistry instructors, like IJ client Lissette Waugh, to get a license they don’t need.

Michael Nolan

Michael loves Charleston and plans to tell its story to visitors, but he will do so because he has a right to say what he wants—not because the city has given him its permission.

Hilda Brucker

Hilda Brucker was sitting at home one day working her job as a freelance writer. The phone rang, she answered, and was told by a hostile voice that if she didn’t come down to the courthouse at once she would be given a failure to appear violation. She hastily complied. When she got there, she found out that the city had issued a citation, although it had never told her about it. She later learned the citation stated she was charged with (1) “Rotted wood on house and chipping paint on fascia boards”; (2) “High weeds in backyard and ivy on tree and vines on house”; and (3) “Driveway in a state of disrepair.” Not knowing what to do, Hilda pled guilty to the driveway charge, while the other two were dismissed. She paid a fine of $100 and was sentenced to six months probation, where she had to report to a probation officer, avoid alcoholic intoxication, and cooperate “with code enforcement upon request.” She later hired an attorney who filed a motion to vacate her sentence, but the motion was continued several times, eventually being granted only after her six-month probation would have already ended. She also obtained a home equity line of credit in case she needed to pay for any of the fixes that the city nebulously demanded.

Jeanette Strohm-Anderson and Mark Anderson

IJ school choice parents Mark and Jeanette Anderson plan to send their son, Max, to a school with a math and science curriculum that better fits his interests and needs.

Celeste Kelly

IJ client Celeste Kelly spent hundreds of hours learning about horses in order to obtain private certifications in animal massage. But now the state of Arizona is forcing her to become a licensed veterinarian to continue practicing her craft.

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.

Steve Camburn

Steve is a model landlord who deeply cares about his tenants and their comfort and security. However, he is unwilling to allow the Borough to intrude into his tenants’ homes without their consent.

Liz Robbins

Liz has seven children, three of whom have a severe tissue disorder called EDS which requires constant medical attention. Liz needs Nevada’s ESA so she can design a quality education for her youngest EDS child, Dallin, who will likely miss a lot of school in the future.

Next Chapter Winery

Next Chapter Winery is a family-run winery in New Prague, Minnesota built by Timothy and Therese Tulloch. To grow Next Chapter’s business, they would like to offer more varieties of wine, which would require using more grapes from other regions.

Senator Daniel Ivey-Soto

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

Lata Jagtiani

Lata has been threading since she was a teenager in India and saw a need for threading services in the New Orleans metropolitan area. But in June 2016, state regulators fined her business for employing unlicensed threaders, and ordered Lata to fire her unlicensed employees.

Kriss Marion

Kriss Marion is the founder of her local farmers’ market in Blanchardville, Wisconsin. But under the state’s ban on selling home-baked goods, Kriss must instead give her extra baked goods away or feed them to her pigs and chickens.

Gerardo Serrano

Gerardo Serrano owns a Ford F-250 pickup that was seized by Customs and Border Protection for civil forfeiture in September 2015. CBP seized the truck because they found five bullets in the center console, claiming they were “munitions of war.” After almost two years without a judge hearing his case, Gerardo joined with the Institute for Justice in September 2017 to file a lawsuit to get his truck back. Gerardo also filed suit on behalf of all U.S. citizens who have had vehicles seized by CBP, seeking an order requiring the agency to provide a prompt hearing whenever they take vehicles for civil forfeiture.

Florence and Derrick Doyle

Florence and Derrick would like their children to attend a Catholic high school in Aurora, Colo. But paying tuition for both children to attend Regis would be a substantial financial burden, so scholarships by Douglas County’s school choice program would help defray costs.

Achan Agit

Achan works in fear that Iowa will punish her for providing her services without a license. If she could braid without a license, she would reopen her salon, grow her business and better provide for her family.

Opternative

Opternative 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, Opternative’s technology allows doctors to provide faster and better service to more people—but not in South Carolina.

Young Americans for Freedom

Whitworth University Young Americans for Freedom Chapter (WU-YAF) has members who are eligible for the State Work-Study Program, but some of their desired employers are considered ineligible because they are “sectarian.”

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.

Alexis Bailly Vineyard

Inspired by France’s wine-growing regions, Nan Bailly’s father started Alexis Bailly Vineyard, Minnesota’s oldest operating farm winery, in 1973. Nan has continued her father’s legacy, making Minnesota wines with her vineyard’s grapes and other locally-sourced ingredients. She would like the freedom to offer new and greater varieties of blended wine to the public without worrying about an arbitrary limit on how many of her grapes crossed Minnesota’s border.

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.

Boaz Brown

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

Keith Westphal

IJ clients Keith Westphal and Joyce Osborn Wilson are banned from offering Alabamians a comfortable and clean place to use the prepackaged, teeth-whitening products they sell to customers.

Dan Burgess

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

Martha Rabello

Martha is a stay-at-home mom with two sons, a 5-year old and a 2-year old. She has baked her whole life and is professionally trained. Martha is Brazilian and lived in Brazil for 25 years, and she would like to start a home business focusing on Brazilian-inspired cookies.

Jon McGlothian

After completing his military service as an Army Ranger, Jon McGlothian of Virginia Beach, Va., became a PMP-certified project manager. But Jon can’t advertise to the public or take on individual students because his school isn’t licensed by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

Dina Galassini

Arizona wants to bar people from joining together to protest local ballot measures without first registering with the government.

Laura Pekarik

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

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.

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.

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.

Aicheria Bell

Aicheria Bell lives in Des Moines. She is passionate about natural hair care and has been braiding hair since she was three years old.

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.

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.

Abdikadir “Abdi” Abdisalan and Abdullahi Hassan

Abdi immigrated to the United States in the 1990s, after fleeing the civil war in his native Somalia. He is a longtime taxi driver who want to go into business for himself.

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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