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Medical Professionals File Major Federal Healthcare Lawsuit Against Iowa

June 14, 2017

Federal Government Sues “Pile of Cash”

June 23, 2017

Less than 1% of 8,000 charities rated have received at least 15 consecutive 4-star ratings

Illinois Overwhelmingly Approves Bill to Protect the Innocent from Civil Forfeiture

“No one should be denied justice simply because they cannot afford their day in court.”

Federal Government Sues “Pile of Cash”

An unfortunate mixup on an Amtrak train led to the bizarre spectacle of the federal government of the United States filing a lawsuit against “a pile of cash”—specifically, $17,900 that federal agents decided to seize. This bizarre maneuver is the usual mechanism by which law enforcement seizes property from people on the suspicion that it…

Wisconsin Edges Closer to Trimming Beauty Licensing

Last month, lawmakers in the lower house of Wisconsin Legislature started debating Assembly Bill 167, which would reduce onerous licensing requirements for barbers, cosmetologists and other beauty professionals. While the state Assembly is still working to advance the bill, the state Senate has moved ahead and passed its own template for reform. Senate Bills 108…

Federal Appeals Court Rules Cash Seizure in Nevada Violated the Fourth Amendment

All too often, police use traffic stops for minor offenses as a means to search for and seize cash from motorists. But last week, a federal appellate court ordered police to return $167,000 that was seized more than four years ago following two coordinated traffic stops along I-80 in Nevada. The opinion from the Ninth…

Land of Food Fights

Even as the food vending industry is booming across the country, government officials in the capital and largest cities in Illinois are aggressively hampering food trucks in their communities with onerous red tape. In Lincoln’s erstwhile hometown of Springfield, food trucks are subject to burdensome proximity restrictions that exist to undermine their ability to compete…

When I Heard the Learn’d Economist

Before acclaimed economist William Baumol passed away last month, many of his peers expected him to win a Nobel Prize. Although he did not live to see such an honor, he remains celebrated and respected for his insightful contributions to economics. Thus it comes as no surprise that one of Baumol’s arguably lesser known ideas…

Medical Professionals File Major Federal Healthcare Lawsuit Against Iowa

Arlington, Va.—For years, there has been an ongoing debate about the federal government’s role in our healthcare system. But the debate has largely ignored little-known state laws that do nothing more than increase healthcare costs and limit medical options while lining the pockets of established medical businesses. A new federal lawsuit filed by two doctors…

When the government gets in your way, have you ever stopped and asked why?

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Our Issues

School Choice

School choice is simply the idea that all parents, regardless of means, should enjoy the freedom to choose what schools their children attend.
more on this issue »
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 »

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.

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.

Tina Barnes

Tina was elected to the Charlestown City Council to represent the Pleasant Ridge neighborhood. If forced out by the city, Tina, her daughter and granddaughters will all be homeless.

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.

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.

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.

Ted and Lauren Dzierzbicki

IJ clients Ted and Lauren Dzierzbicki wonder if the government can arbitrarily restrict the property rights of some individuals but not others.

Alexis Bailly Vineyard

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.

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.

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.

Silvio Membreno

IJ client Silvio Membreno built his business by selling flowers to consumers where they want to buy them. But the city of Hialeah, Fla., is unconstitutionally restricting his business.

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.

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.

Scott Fisher and Gone Broke Gaming

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.

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.

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.

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.

Charles Clarke

Charles Clarke is a college student, who spent over 5 years to save up $11,000—only to have it seized by law enforcement officials before he was scheduled to board a flight at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport.

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.

Thomas Halsnik

IJ client Thomas Halsnick is a limousine driver and entrepreneur who is required to charge consumers $50 a ride—no matter how short the ride—even though he want to charge less.

Isis Brantley

For decades, Isis Brantley has fought for her right to braid hair and to pass on her knowledge to others. She successfully sued the state of Texas after it attempted to force her to turn her braiding school into a barber college.

Ben Burris

IJ client Dr. Ben Burris is an Arkansas orthodontist who wants to offer low-cost teeth cleanings to people who cannot otherwise afford them. But it is illegal for him to perform basic dental services, even though he is a licensed dentist.

Carl and Joy Gamble

Norwood, Ohio wanted to bulldoze Carl and Joy’s home of more than three decades to make way for a private developer.

Terry Dehko and Sandy Thomas

Terry Dehko and his family have owned and operated the Schott’s Market in Fraser, Mich., for 35 years. The Dehkos had $35,000 taken from them by federal law enforcement officials through a process known as civil forfeiture.

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.

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.

Ash Patel

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.

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.

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.

Senator Daniel Ivey-Soto

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ocheesee Creamery

Mary Lou Wesselhoeft and her husband Paul Wesselhoeft own Ocheesee Creamery, a small creamery in the Florida Panhandle. Because of the all-natural dairy philosophy that Mary Lou follows, she added nothing to the creamery’s skim milk. But a state agency wants her to use a confusing and misleading label that labels the milk something it is not: “Non-Grade ‘A’ Milk Product, Natural Milk Vitamins Removed.”

Korver Ear Nose and Throat LLC

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.

Jeana and Jack Horner

Jeana and Jack Horner are among the hundreds of people each year who find themselves caught in Indianapolis’s forfeiture machine.

Steve Cooksey

This caveman blogger fought for free speech and Internet freedom.

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.

Jameelah El-Shabazz

Dan Burgess

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

Randy Sowers

Randy Sowers has run a dairy farm in Frederick County, Md. since 1981. But in 2012, the IRS seized the farm’s bank account because the Sowers deposited the cash in amounts under $10,000.

Hinga Mbogo

For more than 30 years, Hinga Mbogo has been fixing the cars of Dallas residents at his shop on Ross Avenue. But the city is trying to shut him down by using an oppressive and little-known zoning process called “amortization.”

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.

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.

IJ By the Numbers

4 Litigation Pillars

Economic Liberty
Property Rights
School Choice
Free Speech

Support

80% from individuals
20% from foundations

IJ litigated 5 U.S. Supreme Court cases since 2002, including 4 victories

IJ is currently litigating 43 cases in 26 states and Washington, D.C.

7 offices

100 employees, including 44 attorneys

Attorneys

Staff

1080 Partners giving $1,000 or more each year

Over 8,000 individual donors

= 25 donors

$22 million budget in FY17

FY16 Budget Breakdown

79%: Programs

14%: Administration

7%: Development

91 legislative reforms secured

48 national awards for communications

70%

Success Rate

Through litigation and legislation

IJ strategic research cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and in 192 articles in scholarly, law, and policy publications.

64 eminent domain projects and blight designations defeated by IJ activism.

Behind the Scenes at IJ

Victory in Chicago!

Victory! The Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneur has been providing legal support and legislative advocacy for Chicago’s street vendors for more than 8 years. Yesterday was the ribbon cutting for their shared kitchen space and it is a day that marks their ability to come out of the shadow economy, comply with the law, and serve delicious treats on Chicago’s streets without fear of harassment, fines or arrest.
Testifying before the Louisiana Senate

14 braiders joined IJ at the Louisiana Senate on May 31 for a hearing on our 2 braiding freedom bills. IJ’s Lee McGrath and Michelle, a Shreveport braider, testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and International Affairs.
Victory in Little Rock!

IJ client Ken Leininger won his lawsuit against the city of Little Rock and now has his new taxi permits!
Victory in Chicago!

Vicky Lugo, leader of the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship client Street Vendors Association of Chicago(SVAC), is proud to present the business license for the SVAC commercial shared kitchen space! Lugo and SVAC have been working since 2015, when the Chicago ordinance legalizing street food was passed, to create a shared kitchen space for SVAC’s vendors who sell delicious, traditional Mexican treats on Chicago’s streets.
Case launch in Minnesota

Today IJ and small farm wineries filed suit to challenge MN’s restrictions on wine making. This photo is from the press conference.

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Illinois Overwhelmingly Approves Bill to Protect the Innocent from Civil Forfeiture

Institute for Justice

Homepage

Medical Professionals File Major Federal Healthcare Lawsuit Against Iowa

Federal Government Sues “Pile of Cash”

Less than 1% of 8,000 charities rated have received at least 15 consecutive 4-star ratings

Nick Sibilla | Press Release | June 23, 2017

Rek LeCounte | Update | June 23, 2017

Rek LeCounte | Update | June 21, 2017

Matt Powers | Update | June 20, 2017

Rek LeCounte | Update | June 19, 2017

Rek LeCounte | Update | June 15, 2017

Shira Rawlinson | Press Release | June 14, 2017

When the government gets in your way, have you ever stopped and asked why?

EVERYTHING

Watch the Institute for Justice’s award-winning short film spotlighting the importance of compensating bone marrow donors.

SUPPORT OUR WORK

The National Law Firm for Liberty

Our Issues

School Choice

Economic Liberty

First Amendment

Private Property

IJ By the Numbers

4 Litigation Pillars

Support

IJ litigated 5 U.S. Supreme Court cases since 2002, including 4 victories

IJ is currently litigating 43 cases in 26 states and Washington, D.C.

7 offices

100 employees, including 44 attorneys

Attorneys

Staff

1080 Partners giving $1,000 or more each year

Over 8,000 individual donors

FY16 Budget Breakdown

79%: Programs

14%: Administration

7%: Development

91 legislative reforms secured

48 national awards for communications

70%

Success Rate

Through litigation and legislation

IJ strategic research cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and in 192 articles in scholarly, law, and policy publications.

64 eminent domain projects and blight designations defeated by IJ activism.

Behind the Scenes at IJ

Victory in Chicago!

Testifying before the Louisiana Senate

Victory in Little Rock!

Victory in Chicago!

Case launch in Minnesota

JOIN THE FIGHT! Sign up for newsletters:

Footer Signup

Litigating for Liberty.

JOIN THE FIGHT!