Employees facing discrimination in the workplace must usually rely on statutes to sue their employers. Governments, however, must operate within the boundaries of the Constitution, including when the government acts as an employer. So, employees who work for a government, such as a state, town, city, or special district, may be able to bring legal…
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No constitutional right is absolute. In the context of the First Amendment and free speech, the law regulates speech which defames another person. On Tuesday, August 6, 2019, in Palin v. The New York Times Company, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided a case involving the intersection of politics, gun…
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On June 4, 2018, we blogged about a federal lawsuit concerning whether President Trump’s Twitter account invokes First Amendment concerns. We wrote about a federal District Judge’s decision in the lawsuit which held that the President’s twitter account is a public forum subject to First Amendment protections. Today, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed…
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Courts have long recognized a constitutional right to intimate association. Intimate association protects close family relationships from undue interference from the government. Today’s Long Island civil rights blog discusses some of the contours of these claims and a recent appellate court decision concerning intimate association under the Fourteenth Amendment. Close family relationships enjoy constitutional protections.…
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The First Amendment’s freedom of speech guarantee remains a hot topic in the courts. The First Amendment lawyers at Famighetti & Weinick PLLC handle First Amendment cases ranging from employment retaliation to retaliation against private citizens. Today’s Long Island civil rights blog discusses retaliatory arrests and the effects of government officials censoring speech. The Constitution…
Continue reading ›The right to freedom of speech is a core value guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The First Amendment, however, regulates only government action, not private citizens or private companies. Today’s Long Island civil rights blog discusses whether President Trump’s twitter feed is a public forum subject to protections of the…
Continue reading ›The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects, among other rights, the freedom of speech. An unsettled area of employment law in New York has been the question of how much protection does the First Amendment provide to public sector employees like police officers. Today’s Long Island employment law blog discusses a recent case…
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On April 25, 2018, Long Island civil rights lawyer Matthew Weinick led a discussion about First and Second Amendment rights at a meeting of the League of Women Voters. The meeting, held at the Levittown Library, was well attended by both organization members and the general public. According to its website, the League of Women…
Continue reading ›The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects several rights, including the freedom of speech. Indeed, the text of the Amendment reads “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.” Like most Constitutional rights, the freedom of speech is not limitless and the level of Constitutional protection speech may…
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In 2009, the Town of Oyster Bay in New York passed a law prohibiting people from soliciting employment along roadways within the Town. Two public interest groups sued the Town alleging that the law violated the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. On August 22, 2017, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the trial…
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