Right to sue
The right to petition the government for redress of grievances includes a right to file suit in a court of law.
The U.S. Supreme Court has collapsed or folded in the distinct right to petition with other protections for group speech. In NAACP v. Button,Virginia attempted to enforce its prohibition of attorney solicitation against the NAACP, which was soliciting and promoting litigation designed to end racial segregation. In its 1963 decision, the Court found that such lawsuits were a form of “political expression” and that the NAACP was a political association. As such, the Court upheld a First Amendment right of judicial access without special reliance on the petition clause.
When right-to-sue claims do not involve issues of constitutional magnitude, the Court has grounded its First Amendment analysis in associational freedoms inherent in a collective resort to the courts. But when neither constitutional issues nor collective action is present, the Court has addressed claims of the right to seek redress in court as a due-process or equal-protection challenge.
In its 1971 decision Boddie v. Connecticut, for example, the Court ordered the waiver of court costs for indigents seeking a divorce — not because of the right to petition, but because marriage and its dissolution have been recognized as fundamental private interests. The Court reasoned that to deny a divorce for lack of ability to pay the state’s court costs was to deny a fundamental right entirely. Though the petitioners in Boddie raised the petition clause as a basis for their challenge, the federal courts at every level viewed the complaint through the prism of due process, which is the right to fair administration of justice.
Due process, not the petition clause, likewise supports prisoners’ access to law libraries and legal advisers in order to attack their sentences and challenge the conditions of their confinement.
The most significant confirmation of a petition-based right to seek judicial redress comes not from free-speech jurisprudence but from antitrust law. In a series of cases beginning with Eastern Railroad Presidents Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight Inc. in 1961, the Supreme Court recognized that antitrust statutes should not penalize petitioners who join to seek passage and enforcement of laws.
In Noerr, 41 truck drivers and their trade unions sued a collection of railroads, railroad presidents and the public relations firm hired to influence legislation concerning truck weight limits and tax rates for heavy trucks. The Court found that the railroad defendants’ influence campaign was immune from antitrust liability under the Sherman Act because “the right to petition is one of the freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, and we cannot, of course, lightly impute to Congress an intent to invade these freedoms.”
Even if, as was true four years later in United Mine Workers v. Pennington, the defendants specifically intended to eliminate competition through their petitioning efforts, they remain immune from liability. In the 1972 decision California Motor Transport v. Trucking Unlimited, the Court capped the so-called “Noerr-Pennington doctrine” by explicitly linking antitrust immunity to the petition clause:
“The same philosophy governs the approach of citizens or groups of them to administrative agencies (which are both creatures of the legislature, and arms of the executive) and to courts, the third branch of Government. Certainly, the right to petition extends to all departments of the Government. The right of access to the courts is indeed but one aspect of the right to petition.”
The shelter afforded by the petition clause from application of antitrust laws has been expanded by lower courts to include immunity from state tort laws and the Civil Rights Act for activities designed to elicit government action. An example would be a 1980 case, Missouri v. NOW, in which Missouri claimed economic damage from a National Organization for Women boycott to induce states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The court held NOW’s activities to be political, a form of petition that was thereby immune from Missouri’s effort to stop them.
Excepted from such immunity, however, is a “sham” petition that is baseless, objectively unreasonable, and undertaken for an improper purpose unrelated to the vindication of rights. In Landmarks Holding Corp. v. Bermant (1981), for instance, a court found in favor of real-estate developers seeking to build a shopping center. The developers alleged a campaign of meritless lawsuits and moves for delay by property owners and competing shopping centers.
In 1983, the Supreme Court’s opinion in Bill Johnson’s Restaurants, Inc. v. NLRB set out the principle that “the right of access to the courts is an aspect of the First Amendment right to petition the Government for redress of grievances.”
In a June 2002 decision, BE&K Construction Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, the high court, though not ruling on First Amendment grounds, nevertheless noted that it had long viewed the right to sue in court as a form of petition.
“We have recognized this right to petition as one of the most precious of the liberties safeguarded by the Bill of Rights,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote for the Court, “and have explained that the right is implied by the very idea of a government, republican in form.”
O’Connor further observed that the First Amendment petition clause says nothing about success in petitioning — “it speaks simply of the right of the people to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
First Amendment scholar David L. Hudson Jr. contributed to this article.
Updated February 2010
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The First Amendment Center is an educational organization and cannot provide legal advice.
Ken Paulson is president and chief executive officer/First Amendment Center. Previously, Paulson served as editor and senior vice president/news of USA Today and USATODAY.com.
Gene Policinski, senior vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, is a veteran journalist whose career has included work in newspapers, radio, television and online.
John Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center in 1991 with the mission of creating national discussion, dialogue and debate about First Amendment rights and values.
Dr. Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum. He writes and speaks extensively on religious liberty and religion in American public life.
David L. Hudson Jr. is a scholar at the First Amendment Center. Hudson writes for firstamendmentcenter.org and for other publications devoted to First Amendment issues.
Tiffany Villager is director/First Amendment studies at the First Amendment Center, which she joined in 1993. She also served as the center’s research manager and research coordinator, and developed the center’s library.
A LEGAL Precedent to abridge an
un-abridge-able right?
Monday, May 09, 2011, 1:14:32 PM
The Prosecution Rests, but I Can’t
CONNICK, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, ET AL. v. THOMPSON (3/29/11)
Our forefathers, for all the originalist thinkers in the group, in the Declara-tion of Independence knew what they wanted when they said:
“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Re-dress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury”
The Right to Petition, to our forefathers, meant more than the right to “repeated Petitions… answered only by repeated injury.” Clearly our forefathers sought substantive justice between government and governed. They had experienced, firsthand, the corruption, malice and incompetence of the Government of King George III’s “repeated injury.”
Based on the failed result, with the Government of King George III, of our forefather’s attempts at justice with “repeated Petitions… answered only by re-peated injury ” that resulted in the Revolutionary war, our forefathers thought it prudent to:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more per-fect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Con-stitution for the United States of America.”
Our forefathers sought to further define and establish Justice between the gov-ernment and the people with the constitutionally assured First Amendment’s lawfully un-abridge-able right:
“Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Yet in America Judicial Power has replaced the malice, corruption and in-competence of the King. In America Judicial Power creates legal precedent. Legal Precedent, Judge made law governs all? NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Judicial Power was and is to be limited by the Constitution for the United States of America to wit:
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby ”
and
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Trea-ties made. ”
This Constitution – the First Amendment secures us:
“Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”
The Laws – Statute law secures us:
TITLE 42–THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE CHAPTER 21–CIVIL RIGHTS SUBCHAPTER I—GENERALLY Sec. 1983. Civil action for dep-rivation of rights: Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Co-lumbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress
and
TITLE 18—CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, PART I—CRIMES, CHAPTER 13—CIVIL RIGHTS § 241. A Conspiracy against rights — If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same.
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping (they stole everything and then kidnapped my son) or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill (they attempted to kill Mr. Thompson), they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
All Treaties made – secures us:
“The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ” as adopted by the United Nations on 12/16/66, and signed by the United States on October 5, 1977 secures for third world countries and the United States of America:
PART II, Article 2, Section 3.
Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes:
(a) To ensure that any person whose rights or freedoms as herein rec-ognized are violated shall have an effective remedy, notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by per-sons acting in an official capacity;
(b) To ensure that any person claiming such a remedy shall have his right thereto determined by competent judicial, administrative or legislative authorities, or by any other competent authority provided for by the legal system of the State, and to develop the possibili-ties of judicial remedy;
(c) To ensure that the competent authorities shall enforce such remedies when granted.
But our Judiciary ABRIDGES and openly deprives us of the protection of our “rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws.” “Everybody, BUT the innocent victim, has “ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY0″” for the deprivation of “any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America.” Criminals go free if any of their “rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws” are ABRIDGED, “The Exclusionary Rule.” Our Judges, our Prosecutors, our Police, point in fact “all persons — governmental or otherwise — who were integral parts of the judicial process” can criminally use the Color of Law to randomly, ma-liciously, corruptly or incompetently Steal, Kidnap, and Murder by depriving the innocent victim’s “rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitu-tion and laws of the United States of America.”
And unless, the innocent victim while being impoverished, destitute, homeless and alone on the street or convicted in jail on death row, can prove that the criminals that stole from the innocent victim, the criminals that kidnapped the innocent victim’s children, the criminals that attempted to MURDER the innocent victim did the EXACT same thing to several other innocent victims in a timely and consistent pattern, the innocent victim has NO HOPE for substan-tive justice between the government and the people even if you repeatedly “petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Judicial precedent deprives the victim of the right to substantive justice between the govern-ment and the people.
There is binding LEGAL precedent out there that abridges the constitu-tionally and congressionally un-abridge-able Right of Petition’s as substantive justice between the government and the innocent victim? This is OUR Judici-ary at war with the constitution, at war with the common law, at war with the civilized world. This is OUR Judiciary wagging a war of oppression against its own people. And why? Because, for self-serving reasons, the criminal conspir-acy of black robed royalist in the JUDICIARY has simply said so?
Legal precedent that abridges a constitutionally and congressionally un-abridge-able right is repugnant to the Constitution, repugnant to common law and repugnant to the ends of Justice.
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby ”
Impeach the Supreme Court FIVE
for verifiable NOT “good Behaviour, ” denying the establishment of justice and abridging a Constitutionally secured and congressionally un-abridge-able right, with their deprivation of sub-stantive justice between the government and the people, CONNICK, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, ET AL. v. THOMPSON (3/29/11)!!!
The Right of Petition is the right to substantive justice between the gov-ernment and the people. We do not have any individually enforceable rights in this country, “Everybody, BUT the innocent victim, has “ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY”" for the deprivation of “any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Consti-tution and laws of the United States of America” e.g., To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Denial of Due Process, The Exclusionary Rule, Grounds for Impeachment, Jeep v Obama, Jeep v United States of America 10-1947, Jeep v Jones “The most humble Petition for a Wirt of Certiorari to the Supreme Court 07-11115.”
DGJeep”The Earth and everything that’s in it” (http://dgjeep.blogspot.com/)
Monday, May 09, 2011, 1:14:32 PM 2011 05-06-11 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer – A LEGAL Precedent to abridge an un-abridge-able right REV 02.doc
I need someone to help me in filing an redness of grievances please call 256-226-4711
There is no form or legal procedure for petitioning the government for redress of grievances. You simply write a letter, make a phone call, send an e-mail or request a meeting with whatever government body or agency you have a grievance with.
“(I)it is a general and indisputable rule that where there is a legal right, there is also a legal remedy by suit or action at law whenever that right is invaded.”
“It is a general and indisputable rule that where there is a legal right, there is also a legal remedy by suit or action at law whenever that right is invaded.” “It is a settled and invariable principle in the law… that every right, when withheld, must have a remedy, and every injury its proper redress.” Chief Justice John Marshal in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 163 (1803) establishing Supreme Court precedent and quoting English common law per the Commentaries on the Laws of England, the 18th-century treatise on the common law of England by Sir William Blackstone
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), Page 5 U. S. 163
WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection. In Great Britain, the King himself is sued in the respectful form of a petition, and he never fails to comply with the judgment of his court.” Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), Page 5 U. S. 163
Can I sue an individual for making a false claim of military service after he breached a contract. I have gotten a Journal Entry of Default Judgment against the individual and his company.
After I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, he claims to be a Marine Corps Vet…, This statement was meant to intimidate and coerce me into taking no action against him.
I am distressed by his email; received the day of my brother-in-law’s funeral. He was a true hero, a KS NG Vietnam Vet. I had also been the caregiver for my elderly aunt. She had lost her son, another Vietnam Vet.
You would need to speak to an attorney about that.
[...] preferable to dueling with pistols or “necktie parties” in the woods. The courts have declared the right to sue inherent in the first amendment, and the fairest judge I ever knew told me never to sign that right [...]