Author: LegalEase Solutions

QUESTION PRESENTED

“For standing purposes, would humiliation or a threat of injury constitute an imminent injury?”

 SHORT ANSWER

Humiliation or threat of injury may likely to constitute imminent injury if the Plaintiff succeed in proving the declaration by the Defendant resulted in real or immediate threat that the plaintiff will be wronged again causing a likelihood of substantial and immediate irreparable injury.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

The United States Supreme Court has held that the “overriding purpose of Title II [is] ‘to move the daily affront and humiliation involved in discriminatory denials of access to facilities ostensibly open to the general public …’” Daniel v. Paul, 395 U.S. 298, 307-08 (1969) (quoting H.R.Rep. No. 914, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 18). The courts have observed that “Title II of the Civil Rights Act is to be liberally construed and broadly read” is “well established.” Miller v. Amusement Enterprises, Inc., 394 F.2d 342, 349 (5th Cir. 1968).

The Fifth Circuit was presented with an instant where “defendants-appellees operated the bar in a fashion which discriminated against Negroes by refusing them service on the same basis as the service provided white members of the general public. The complaint prayed for appropriate injunctive relief.” United States v. DeRosier, 473 F.2d 749, 750-51 (5th Cir. 1973). The court observed that:

Once it was shown, as here, that the establishment is a ‘place of entertainment’, and thus a place of public accommodation, the Act proscribes any and all efforts to deny one ‘the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodation’ of that place because of discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin. The statute is not limited to proscribing discrimination only as to the enjoyment of those devices which make the establishment a place of public accommodation.

Id. at 752.

In Miller v. Amusement Enterprises, Inc., 394 F.2d 342, 353 (5th Cir. 1968), the court held that “[o]ne of the purposes of [Civil Rights Act] legislation was to eliminate the inconvenience, unfairness and humiliation of racial discrimination.”

Another court has observed that “the overall insult to human dignity with which Congress was so clearly concerned arise in the context of intentional conduct, such as segregation and/or the denial of admission because of a patron’s race or religion.” Akiyama v. U.S. Judo Inc., 181 F. Supp. 2d 1179, 1185 (W.D. Wash. 2002).

The Eleventh Circuit explained that “[t]he Supreme Court has held that, in order to claim injunctive relief, a plaintiff must show a ‘real or immediate threat that the plaintiff will be wronged again— a likelihood of substantial and immediate irreparable injury.’” Jackson v. Motel 6 Multipurpose, Inc., 130 F.3d 999, 1007 (11th Cir. 1997) (quoting City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 111, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 1670, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983)).

Therefore, when Muslims are excluded from the exhibition and sale of guns as well as gun safety and shooting classes at its shooting range of Florida Gun Supply and a declaration of “Muslim Free Zone” is viewed on television and internet worldwide, it result in an intent to discriminate. Thus, real or immediate threat that the plaintiff will be wronged again is present in the minds of the Muslim population. In other words there exists a likelihood of substantial and immediate irreparable injury.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, humiliation or a threat of injury may constitute an imminent injury if the Plaintiff is able to prove the discrimination intended by the Defendant result is substantial, immediate and irreparable.