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Date: 08-15-2022
Case Style:
HELBACHS CAFÉ LLC v. City of Madison
Case Number: 21-3338
Judge: Kirsch
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on appeal from the Western District of Wisconsin (Dane County)
Plaintiff's Attorney:
Defendant's Attorney: Sadie Romona Zurfuh and Brmzy Bitar
Description: Madison, Wisconsin civil rights lawyers represented Plaintiff, which sued Defendant on a First Amendment violation theory.
After the public health department
for the City of Madison and Dane County, Wisconsin issued
a COVID-19 mask mandate, an owner of Helbachs Café
posted a sign: “Mask Free Zone. Please remove mask before
entering” and then took it down about 30 minutes later. Over
the next few days, Madison’s public health officials cited Hel-
bachs several times for violating its COVID-19 orders, and
then set a hearing to revoke Helbachs’ food and drink license
for cumulative violations. Helbachs sued the City of Madison,
the County of Dane, Madison Assistant City Attorney Marci
Paulsen, and employees of the health department, all in their
official capacities, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that the
defendants retaliated against Helbachs in violation of the First
Amendment for posting its anti-mask sign. Before the district
court, Helbachs conceded that its claims against the individ-
ual defendants were duplicative of the claims against the mu-
nicipal defendants because it was only pursuing theories of
liability under Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S.
658 (1978).
The citations were later dismissed, and the revocation
hearing was not pursued. The first issue we must decide, then,
is whether Helbachs has standing to bring this First Amend-
ment retaliation claim. We conclude that it does because the
record shows that Helbachs suffered injury-in-fact beyond the
revoked citations and the threatened, but aborted, hearing.
However, Helbachs’ First Amendment claim fails under Mo-
nell because the defendants’ actions were not part of a larger
pattern or practice of retaliation.
See: http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2022/D08-15/C:21-3338:J:Kirsch:aut:T:fnOp:N:2918013:S:0
Outcome: Affirmed.
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: