>>9913631 PB

Part 1 from Lawfag…

Primer discussion on suing the government over mandatory masks and/or business closures (BC)

1. What kind of “law” is the government using to require masks and/or BC’s?

You first need to know the source of the law, either executive or legislative. A mask and/or BC “law” may be a municipal or county ordinance enacted by your elected officials, or it may be a state law passed by your state legislature. It could also be an “order” or “proclamation” of your local or county executive (a manager, mayor, commissioner, etc.), or an “executive order” by your governor. Sometimes such orders at the state level may even involve the consent of a commission.

So, your starting point is to find out where the damn requirement came from. Get a copy. Print it.

2. Does local/county/state law permit this?

This will get a little complicated, but bear with me. Start by understanding that there is the Federal government with authority from the Constitution, State gov’ts with their own Constitutions, and county/local governments which are referred to together as “Political Subdivisions” (Pol Subdivs). There are three kinds of ways State and Political Subdivisions may function – a State may elect to follow “Dillon’s Rule” (more common), “Home Rule” (less common) or a bastardization of the two. The difference is this: under Dillon’s Rule, Pol Subdivs can only exercise the authority that is delegated to them by the State, and under Home Rule the Pol Subdivs have inherent powers to do what they want. You can find a good discussion of it, along with what your state may be, here:

https://constitutingamerica.org/home-rule-or-dillon-rule-meaning-and-purpose-for-effective-local-government-guest-essayist-marc-clauson/

Why does that matter? Two reasons – Pol Subdivs are more likely to be active in passing ridiculous laws in a Home Rule state, and courts in Home Rule states are even more likely to grant deference to the Pol Subdivs. That will be ON TOP of their inherent liberal bias if the judge is a leftist crony.

So, with that in mind, you will need to then look at the State Constitution or Pol Subdiv Charter (or whatever your state calls it). ALSO keep in mind that what you see when you search online for that may have been amended, and those amendments can be “hiding” in other links you have to search down, instead of the document you are looking at. The large majority of Pol Subdiv ordinances can be found are here:

https://library.municode.com

https://codelibrary.amlegal.com

Keep in mind – large majority. Not all; your town or county may use another vendor or self-publish its code.

If the law comes from a Pol Subdiv, you also need to look at your State Constitution and State code so you can learn the legal background of your State’s laws. In doing so, you are trying to find language that either does not grant power to the Pol Subdiv, or creates a legal boundary that a Mask or BC law crosses…

If you find such State law, bookmark it. That can be one line of attack.

3. Sidebar about legal analysis

Do not use “chop logic”, which is what almost EVERY non-lawyer uses, when analyzing something. For instance, I recently had someone here tell me that the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) mandated businesses to provide everyone who enters their store a respirator mask, regardless of the business. UTTER HORSESHIT. The CFR section in question (OSHA regulations) only applied to employees, and further only applied to certain kinds of businesses which performed work where respiratory issues were a risk associated with that work.

Make sure the law you’re looking at applies to the situation. If you yank something from the Worker’s Comp laws and expect it to apply to masks, well…you’re free to wreck your shit driving the wrong way down that one-way street. Don’t bother arguing with me, either, because if you’re stupid enough to hang your hat on bullshit analysis and reject educated rebuttal, I feel no compunction to help you.

>>9914684

>>9913631 PB

Part 2 from Lawfag…

4. After laying the groundwork of how to look at this, the analysis of all 3 possible government actors (State, or the two Pol Subdivs) becomes relatively common.

A. Did the State law authorize it (expressly, or through inherent Home Rule powers?)

This may well involve looking at case law, good luck with that. Again, NO CHOP LOGIC. Focus your search on government power to pass orders, don’t look at a case involving a contract or a car wreck, or some other unrelated bullshit, and expect it to provide you with precedent. Also, don’t go to old platitudes in the US Constitution from 1842 and expect them to carry any weight. Look at the nitty gritty of the question involving orders or ordinances passed by local governments (parallels are exec orders and statutes at the State level).

If not authorized, great! You have a legal basis to challenge it.

B. If the Mask or BC law is authorized, does the language of the Mask and/or BC law exceed what is legally permitted?

If it does, great! You have a legal basis to challenge it.

C. If the Mask or BC law could be authorized, but the government didn’t follow the proper procedures to enact it, is that a claim?

Sorta congrats – you have a basis to challenge it (“due process”), but the government can cure the problem and kill your lawsuit.

5. If it is legally permitted, is it still discriminatory in some way?

Discrimination occurs when a law harms a definable, recognizable group of people (race, sex, religion, ethnicity, age). “I’m a Republican” is not a recognizable group of people. You wouldn’t know from looking at the person. So discrimination is typically a limited.

However, the “class” analysis is also applied in a different way, when a law affects other subsets of people and organizations differently. For instance, a law that should have general application may only apply to, say, pubs instead of hardware stores. This is not discrimination as you hear it on TV, it is instead a possible “equal protection” claim. That can arise under either your State Constitution or the US Constitution. Equal Protection claims are tricky. It is a long discussion and the best way to begin to learn about it is by starting here:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/equal_protection

Keep in mind also that EP claims may involve “as written” and “as applied” situations.

1. The basic thing to keep in mind about Equal Protection

Here is the thing - “Does this make any sense?” is a pretty good layman's rule of thumb to use when analyzing an “as written” EP claim. For instance, if a government passes a law or order that says liquor stores may stay open but churches cannot, your gut reaction is, “This is STUPID!” True, but you have to explain why, using facts. Does the law/order take into account that churches provide a necessary service? What is that service, and how would you describe it? (Here is where you can pull some descriptive language from other kinds of cases that can carry weight, ESPECIALLY if it’s US Supreme Court language). Does the liquor store provide a necessary service? Again, how? What are the differences in how they operate? What are the similarities? Are both capable of taking precautions under existing medical guidelines to safely operate? Did the government take this into account? Did it ask the public before doing something stupid?…

That’s the basics of building that kind of case.

>>9914690

>>9914684

>>9913631 PB

Part 3 from Lawfag…

7. “As written” vs “as applied”

If a law violates EP as written, then it should be fairly obvious. Good example – no singing in church. How in the FUCK could this possibly have anything to do with Rona protection? Do masks and “social distancing” work, or don’t they? Is it fair to let a restaurant operate with its employees in an enclosed kitchen, handling food to be given to the public while talking constantly to each other in order to do their jobs, and a church can’t meet for an hour and people sing a few times during the service? That’s an “as written” claim.

An “as applied” claim example would be a law that forbids public gatherings…unless the government refuses to enforce it as to BLM protesters.

8. Great, Lawfag! I think I might have a claim…so what’s next?

You need to keep in mind 2 things – first, you need a good lawyer. Someone who will be on your side. That will take digging to find out which ones are conservatives handling civil rights cases…but a great place to start is to check with groups like the ACLJ. Don’t call them, do a search to find out if the ACLJ has done any work in your state. Also look for other groups and law firms like ACLJ in your state, or affiliated with ACLJ.

Second, you need to take their advice if they handle your case and don't try to out-lawyer your lawyer, because he'll end up firing your ass as a client, and rightfully so, but DO have a discussion as to whether you should file claims in State Court or Federal Court.

If you have a state law claim, your only recourse is in state court…so you are stuck with your state’s “forum selection” laws. That can be fatal to your cause if you have corrupt lib judges. Forum shopping is 100% something you should do, because the motherfuckers on the other side don’t hesitate to fuck you over by doing it themselves. However, if you have a Fed claim, Fed court can be the way to go. While you can bring both Fed and state claims together in Fed court, keep in mind that the Feds love to punt those back to State court under “concurrent jurisdiction” laws and allow the States to decide that.

Where you file matters.

A few things are over-simplified; it's hard to put this into laymen's terms in just a short period of time. Hope this helps.

I welcome other lawfags chiming in to flesh this out.

>>9914697

A pleasure. I was able to pull this together faster than I thought…that's ok, it's always better to under-promise and over-deliver.

>>9914797

If you already know all this, then either go get a lawyer and do what you need to do, or go represent yourself. I'm not your attorney, I just provided a layman's overview of how to take a look at a situation and decide if a lawsuit was in the realm of possibility,

which was the question posed.

I didn't write this for your personal benefit.

>>9914766

WA state isn't my jurisdiction of practice, but we generally understand that western states are more commonly "Home Rule"…they are younger jurisdictions that seem to prefer having mini-gov'ts with plenipotentiary power…

That bastardized idea of "independence from the state government" was a foolish concept from the get-go, because it lost sight of the fact that the ultimate purpose of limited government power was not to delegate it down to the next lower level, but to limit ALL governments with the delegation of ultimate power in the hands of individual citizens themselves.

>>9914695

Going to append my primer with one further answer to your question - class action lawsuits.

Class actions are really more effective against businesses. Much less so against governments.

Most lawsuits against governments that result in changes to the law are either one person/organization, or a small group. However, class actions involve class certification that slows things down and actually adds an additional hurdle to the plaintiffs, so I wouldn't do it in this case.

However, I would make an organization and sue through that representative organization, or just have a lot of named plaintiffs.

Suing as a group does have real benefits (and they are significant) against the government. First, you will gain more public recognition and more people who favor your case as a group of businesses (your potential jury pool includes your customers). Second, you get to save money by splitting costs.

However, I have seen groups fall apart over funding, so my thought would be that it's wise to have everybody make a significant financial contribution upfront, so that people don't back out when the lawyer's bill comes due.

>>9914885

Baker, lawfag who posted the primer here.

I kindly ask you to consider adding this to the notes on the lawfag primer>>9914918

I hate to do that because it's cheesy af, but if the other stuff is gonna be notabled then I'm asking to request this because it's a piece of info answering the original anons question, and stupidly I skipped past addressing it in the primer.

Thx. I will head off to tard jail now.