Courts nationwide awash in lawsuits over COVID restrictions on business, religion

A Rio Linda gym owner filed a suit Monday over California’s stay-at-home order, saying it is unconstitutional and has cost him $100,000 since the coronavirus pandemic began.

A student at the Sacramento-based for-profit Carrington College filed a suit last week, saying the school’s move to online teaching because of COVID-19 has deprived him of the in-person instruction he expected for his $4,000 spring tuition payment.

An Orange County woman sued Gov. Gavin Newsom on May 8, saying his stay-at-home order “ruined her idyllic wedding plans to get married” last month in Dana Point.

Even Carissa Carpenter, the con artist who bilked investors out of millions of dollars during her quest to build a movie studio in Dixon, has seized upon the crisis, arguing that she should be placed on home arrest and released from the Texas prison where she is serving a 78-month sentence because “she faces a realistic risk of contracting COVID 19 and dying from complications of the disease.”

Across the nation, coronavirus has spawned more than 1,000 cases by inmates seeking early release, business owners challenging stay-at-home orders and religious institutions arguing their constitutional rights are being abridged and incorrectly labeled as “non-essential.”

“Civil rights are not suspended by a virus,” lawyers for the Cross Culture Christian Center in Lodi church wrote in a case arguing that it be allowed to reopen. “Fundamental and unalienable rights are, by their very nature, ‘essential.’

“Yet the State of California has, in a sweeping abuse of its power, criminalized all religious assembly and communal religious worship while allowing citizens to gather at a liquor store, pot-dispensary, Planned Parenthood, Walmart, CVS, Costco, Home Depot, and many other locations which are deemed “essential.”

Even as virtually every state has moved to relax restrictions imposed in March during the height of the crisis, such arguments are being filed on a daily basis nationwide as individuals turn to the courts during the pandemic.

As of Tuesday, 1,155 complaints had been filed by inmates challenging their continued detention or individuals suing over civil rights violations, employment issues, insurance disputes nand other cases, according to the COVID-19 Complaint Tracker maintained by the Hunton Andrews Kurth law firm, which has offices worldwide.

California court cases rank second, behind New York

New York has the most complaints filed in state and federal courts, with 373 filed to date, while California has 164, the second-highest number.

Most of the complaints filed nationwide so far are challenges to confinement conditions or efforts by inmates to prove their health is at risk from the threat of coronavirus spreading through tightly packed prisons.

Some federal inmates suing in California courts have had success winning release to home confinement or placement in monitored programs outside a prison, while others have been rebuffed.

Carpenter, 57, the would-be movie studio impresario, has long claimed that she is in such poor health she should be released from prison. These efforts began before coronavirus was discovered, but have been renewed in federal court in Sacramento, where her attorney argues she should be freed on home detention from her stay at the Federal Medical Center Carswell near Fort Worth, Texas.

Attorney Erin Radekin argues “COVID-19 is tearing through BOP facilities like wildfire.”

“Ms. Carpenter‘s medical conditions make her sitting duck when — not if — the virus spreads more widely through Carswell,” she wrote in a court filing on Friday.

Prosecutors oppose Dixon con artist’s release

But federal prosecutors disagree, and have asked the court to deny her bid for freedom without holding a hearing.

“Carpenter stole millions of dollars from investors year after year,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rosanne Rust and Christina McCall wrote. “She lived lavishly at the victims’ expense and to date, she has not paid a cent toward the restitution she owes.”

Other high-profile inmates have had success at being transferred to home confinement, including former Stormy Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti and President Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort.

But most likely will fail, one Sacramento attorney and former prosecutor predicts.

“Inmates have nothing else to think about 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they’re bathing in bad jailhouse advice,” said attorney William Portanova, who tested positive for the virus in April and has since recovered. “Every federal magistrate gets thousands of these inmate complaints every year.

“This latest virus is a great basis to claim you’re being punished too much because you’re facing a deadly illness, but it’s not working.”

Other complaints involve constitutional claims, allegations that the response to coronavirus is unfairly harming someone financially or that employers are endangering their workers through a lack of protective equipment.

Fast food workers file suit over COVID safety

In Chicago on Tuesday, McDonald’s workers filed suit against the fast food giant, alleging a failure to provide enough masks, gloves and other gear, a complaint also lodged by McDonald’s workers in California. The restaurant chain disputes the claims, saying in a post on its website Tuesday that it has made dozens of changes in operations and that “we’re doing our part while keeping employees and customers safe.”

Some of the lawsuits are still in their first stages. Elijah Jones, a Roseville resident studying at Carrington Colllege to be a dental assistant, sued over the school’s move to online classes during the crisis, saying in his complaint that the lessons “are subpar in practically every aspect and a shadow of what they once were.”

Since that suit was filed, however, Carrington has announced a plan to begin bringing back small groups of students on May 26 and adding that “the safety of all our students, faculty and staff will always be a top priority.”

The most contentious lawsuits have involved constitutional issues and challenges to a governor’s authority to shut down businesses, churches and other entities in the interest of public health.

Wisconsin’s stay-at-home order struck down

Last week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down that state’s stay-at-home order, triggering an almost immediate return by residents to bars and restaurants.

But federal judges in California have taken a different view of such legal efforts, deciding so far to reject calls for temporary restraining orders that would allow churches to reopen and permit large groups to protest at the state Capitol.

The California Highway Patrol’s ban on protests at such public sites has drawn fire from many quarters, including the non-partisan Protect Democracy, which published an op-ed in the New York Times Tuesday arguing that the protest ban “chose to indefinitely strip Californians of their fundamental right to protest.”

“As we and others explained in a letter to Governor Newsom and the California Highway Patrol, such bans on public protest run afoul of the First Amendment,” the op-ed by Yale Law School visiting lecturer Floyd Abrams and Protect Democracy counsel John Langford wrote. “The First Amendment rights of speech, assembly and association grant special protection for political speech, including protests.

“That is particularly true for protests at public parks and state capitols, which, as the Supreme Court has explained, ‘have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public.’”

New protest over California stay-at-home set for Saturday

Protests against the ban have continued regularly, with the next scheduled Saturday at the Capitol.

But there is dispute over whether California’s actions go too far.

U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez ruled two weeks ago against plaintiffs who wanted a temporary restraining order issued to halt the CHP’s ban. The judge cited a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found “a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members,” and said that as the case progresses it might end up before the high court eventually.

Another legal scholar said there is little doubt that the Wisconsin ruling is an outlier and that the Mendez order essentially upholding the ban for now is correct.

“The idea that the state doesn’t have the capacity to enforce a neutral law designed for public health seems extreme,” said Michael Vitiello, a distinguished professor of law at the McGeorge School of Law. “The typical First Amendment free exercise case law turns on whether it’s a law of general applicability, and surely these orders are health measures and laws of general applicability.

“I don’t think they have a good claim.”

This story was originally published May 19, 2020 at 12:43 PM.