Why the obscure but specific description of Jane Doe II in the original complaint for Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity? In Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity (2023), filed in the Wyoming District of U.S. court, the plaintiffs are seven women, members of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority at University of Wyoming, suing the national organization (based in Ohio) for allegedly having admitted a man to their sorority. The original complaint was filed anonymously. Paragraphs 15–21 describe the plaintiffs. Paragraph 16 reads: Jane Doe II is a citizen of a state that is not Illinois, Ohio, Utah, Washington, or Wyoming. Plaintiff Jane Doe VI is also described in this odd way. The other plaintiffs are simply described as citizens of a single specific state, variously Nebraska, Colorado, or Oklahoma. What is up with “not Illinois, Ohio, Utah, Washington, or Wyoming”? I can think of reasons why Wyoming and Ohio are in there: the case concerns a Wyoming matter and was filed in the District of Wyoming, and the defendant is based in Ohio. Why are Illinois, Utah, and Washington mentioned specifically, and no other state is?
This case was filed in federal court under diversity jurisdiction, meaning that it’s a lawsuit between citizens of different states. In most cases, diversity jurisdiction requires “complete” diversity: every plaintiff has to be a citizen of a different state than every defendant. If one of 12 plaintiffs is a Maryland resident and one of 15 defendants is also a Maryland resident, that tiny overlap means the entire lawsuit is kicked back to state court. In this case, the defendants are an Ohio fraternity, an Illinois resident, a Wyoming company, and a person whose residence is unclear. Defendant Smith might be a Wyoming resident, a Utah resident, or a Washington resident. The plaintiffs aren’t sure. However, as long as the plaintiffs aren’t residents of any of those states, there’s complete diversity of citizenship. It doesn’t matter whether Doe II is from Alaska or Florida, just that she isn’t from the same state as any defendant.
There is no federal prohibition against sexual discrimination in public accomodations. Colorado has an applicable state law, which covers "any place of business engaged in any sales to the public", where "It is a discriminatory practice and unlawful ...to refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual or a group, because of ...sexual orientation...the full and equal enjoyment of the goods...". No provision exempts lemonade stands. Churches etc. are specifically exempted: "'Place of public accommodation' shall not include a church, synagogue, mosque, or other place that is principally used for religious purposes". Sex discrimination is allowed "if such restriction has a bona fide relationship to the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of such place of public accommodation", an argument that can't reasonably be made in the described case. It is also not obvious that running a lemonade stand is a business (the courts will not admit unsubstantiated Wiki assertions as evidence). It would be relevant to wonder what constitutes a "business" under Colorado law. E.g. is a business license required? In Colorado (US) law, it has not been definitively decided whether there can be a religious exception to the anti-discrimination law. Masterpiece Cakeshop was decided without answering that (the state showed clear religious intolerance in its handling of the case). We do not know how a similar case will be decided: Arlene's Flowers was handed back to the state court with the instruction "do it again" (with nothing more than a mention of Masterpiece Cakeshop). The court cannot establish certain beliefs and practices as "valid religions" (Establishment Clause); the proxy expression that is used is "deeply held belief", which includes atheism. The relationship of the issue to the First Amendment is uncertain.
The situations cannot reasonably be compared legally. In Wynn v. Vilsack, a motion for preliminary injunction was granted (and the program was not ruled unconstitutional). In the ruling, the court found that the evidence &quot;does not support a finding that USDA continues to be a participant, passive or active, in discrimination&quot;, and does find that there were past successful remediation efforts, thus &quot;the Court expresses serious concerns over whether the Government will be able to establish a strong basis in evidence warranting the implementation of Section 1005's race-based remedial action&quot;, moreover &quot;Plaintiff has convincingly shown that the relief provided by Section 1005 is not narrowly tailored to serve that interest&quot;. The court finds that there is a good-enough case that the law fails strict scrutiny. Incidentally, Congress repealed that law. On the other hand, in Evanston, we have no facts or concrete legal allegations (e.g. drafts of a legal complaint). The cited memorandum is a recommendation, not a law. There does exist at least one available council action from 2019 which says that The Chief Financial Officer is hereby authorized to divert all adult use cannabis funds received by the Illinois Department of Revenue for sales of adult use cannabis to a separate fund in a City account for local reparations. SECTION 3: The City may receive donations to this fund from separate organizations, corporations, and individuals established herein by the City Council. The city also has a page referring to Ordinance 102-O-20 (not available) indicating that &quot;The Committee will work with residents, City staff and experts to explore and identify programs and opportunities to be supported by the Reparations Fund&quot;. The Program Guidelines §3 indicates that a person may be eligible for money if they are an ancestor, direct descendant, or &quot;other&quot; who has suffered from a &quot;City ordinance, policy, or procedure that served to discriminate against the Applicant in the area of housing&quot;. It thus does not exclude Asian and Hispanic homeowners, LGBTQIA2S+, Catholic, Muslims or anyone else, except insofar as a Catholic was not demonstrably the victim of such discrimination. The city also provides an extensive historical study of past government discrimination in housing. You may be able to eke out more concrete information on what they have done here, at the reparations committee website. In terms of potential differentia between the USDA program and the Evanston program, the most obvious difference would be in terms of prior remediation efforts. If you sue Evanston for their program, they could defend the program as providing the remediation that justifies the program – which had already been provided in the USDA program.
There is no opinion from the Ninth Circuit. I just checked PACER, and there is a docketed order dated May 18, 2016: Filed order (STEPHEN REINHARDT, MARY H. MURGUIA and JOHN B. OWENS) We have reviewed appellant’s opening brief, appellees’ motion for summary affirmance and appellant’s opposition thereto. We conclude that the questions raised in this appeal are so insubstantial as not to require further argument. Accordingly, we grant appellee’s motion for summary affirmance. See United States v. Hooton, 693 F.2d 857 (9th Cir.1982) (per curiam) (summary affirmance appropriate where the result is clear from the face of record); see Mullis v. United States Bankr. Court for Dist. of Nevada, 828 F.2d 1385, 1388, 1394 (9th Cir. 1987) (judges are immune from civil liability for damages and for declaratory relief for their judicial acts). AFFIRMED. [9981929] (WL) [Entered: 05/18/2016 02:48 PM] I downloaded Jaffe's Ninth Circuit brief and it's a pretty dull work of a crank. I use the RECAP Mozilla add-on, so the Ninth Circuit docket and brief should show up on RECAP soon. Go to https://www.courtlistener.com/ and in "Advanced Search", search on docket no. 15-56328. Based on past experience it should show up in a day or two. But that's the Ninth Circuit brief, not the SCOTUS one you're looking for; unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court is the one US court that is not searchable via PACER. You're limited to the docket, opinions and orders that the Court publishes on its site. For more legitimate cases, briefs can often be found on either SCOTUSBlog or the ABA's briefs page, but not in this case.
The main legal question is, whose law applies? According to Krauss v. Globe Int'l, Inc., 1995 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 787, where Krauss (in all-party PA) was recorded by Globe (in one-party NY). Krauss sued Globe in NY under PA law. The court found that the &quot;law of the place of injury&quot; determines which laws hold. Since the recording took place in NY and not in PA, NY law applies, case dismissed. A similar setup (and different outcome) arose in Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney, 137 P.3d 914 where SSB (in one-party GA) recorded Kearney (in all-party CA). The CA Supreme Court reached the opposite decision, finding that &quot;the failure to apply California law in this context would impair California's interest in protecting the degree of privacy afforded to California residents by California law more severely than the application of California law would impair any interests of the State of Georgia&quot;. It is unlikely that functioning in the capacity of an officer of a NJ company at work would be found legally relevant. The main questions would be, where was the recording made, and which court system is deciding the matter? Assuming that the suit is filed in PA and given that Pennsylvania no longer follows the lex loci delicti rule (Griffith v. United Air Lines,416 Pa. 1), the prospects are greater, following the persuasive precedent of the California ruling would tip the sales in favor of a finding against the NJ person making the recording of a party who is in PA (and who files the suit). In a somewhat related PA Supreme Court case Pennsylvania v. Britton, 229 A.3d 590 there arose a &quot;two jurisdictions&quot; problem of recording – involving California and Pennsylvania – the court observes that when an issue implicates substantive laws, such as the privacy rights asserted by Appellant, a conflict-of-law analysis requires the forum court to apply the law of the state with the most interest in the outcome of the controversy which is to say, the PA Supreme Court agreed (indirectly) with the reasoning in Kearney v. SSB.
Is it acceptable for person A (representing themselves) to refer to person B as &quot;their neighbor&quot; instead of by their name, or would that cause the suit to be dismissed? Omitting the neighbor's name in the pleadings &amp; proceedings cannot singlehandedly cause the dismissal of a defamation suit. The matter would result in dismissal only if the plaintiff repeatedly disobeys court order(s) (if any) to disclose that information. Before the proceedings get to that point, the plaintiff will have had one or more hearings to dispute the defendant's alleged need for identifying a non-party by name. When opposing to that disclosure, the plaintiff's goal is to establish that the false narrative about robbing a neighbor at gunpoint is defamatory regardless of neighbor's name. Keep in mind that the focus in a claim of defamation is the defamed person, whereas the relevance of details such as who the non-parties are pertains to context and evidence. Lastly, the fact that a party to the suit is a pro se litigant is irrelevant from both substantial and procedural standpoints.
Be careful: from the Wikipedia article, it appears that there is a state criminal trial and there will be a federal criminal trial. In addition, there is a federal civil suit which incorporates some stats law claims. The defense in each trial may be different. Have you read the complaint in the civil case? As an example, count 1 alleges, in paragraph 214, that the defendants' actions were &quot;without legal cause.&quot; An obvious defense is to show that the actions were actually justified under the law. The law under which they would have been justified would be state law. It's still possible that the state law justification isn't sufficient, but that is another point to be argued in court. If they can't prevail in showing that state law did authorize their actions then the act was certainly unlawful under both state and federal law. Do defendants have standing to invoke self-defense given the context or did they give this up at some point in time? Standing is a threshold that plaintiffs must meet. But defendants can certainly argue self defense. Whether they can prevail on that argument depends on the facts of the case as determined by the court, in particular by the &quot;finder of fact,&quot; which is the jury in a jury trial and the judge in a bench trial. The facts that I'm aware of in the public record suggest that the defendants would not prevail on such an argument, but that doesn't deprive them of the right to advance it in court. If someone claims that Arbery was grabbing for the shotgun then the defendants have a right to introduce any evidence of that fact that they may have. It is for the finder of fact to judge the credibility of the evidence.
In April 2017, a US District court on Colorado ruled that a law prohibiting women from exposing their breasts in public was an unconstitutional discrimination against women. The law was ordinance 134 passed by Fort Collins, Colorado in May 2016. The group opposing it was led by the activist organization "Free the Nipple." This ruling is not binding in other states, however. See this Snopes report for more details. The case is being appealed to the Tenth Circuit. A similar ordinance has been taken to state court in New Hampshire on similar grounds as described in this AP story and this US News story A similar claim in Illinois in 2017 resulted in a law against 'public indecency" being upheld (in Tagami v. City of Chicago) at the Federal Appeals Court level, according to this Reason story A similar law in Ocean City, Maryland, was challenged in federal court in the summer oif 2018 according to this news story. in 1991 in United States v. Biocic the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a similar law against a similar challenge. This Munknee article lists states where a woman going topless is legal and illegal. According to a Time Article (which gives a similar list): The vast majority of states actually have laws on the books making clear that women can’t be arrested under state law solely for being topless in settings where it’s OK for men. But many local ordinances ban the practice anyway. In short, it is not yet fully settled if there is a US constitutional right for a woman to go topless, and state and local laws vary widely. Local laws do not always conform to the laws of the state, but would probably require a court challenge to enforce the state law. Laws in other countries will vary, but many places ban such exposure.