Judge tosses First Amendment suit challenging statehouse ban of food truck with slur in name
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the state of New York’s decision to ban a food truck from a vendor program because its name was an Italian slur.
U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino of Albany tossed the suit in a decision (PDF) on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports.
Truck owners Andrea Loguidice and Brandon Snooks had alleged the state violated their First amendment rights when it refused to allow their “Wandering Dago” food truck to park outside New York’s statehouse. They have said the name is a “playful reference” to their Italian heritage.
D’Agostino said the case did not “fit cleanly within any of the existing First Amendment jurisprudence,” so she would analyze it under cases governing government forums, employee/contractor speech, and government speech. “Whatever the appropriate analysis,” she wrote, “the end result is the same”—there was no First Amendment violation.
D’Agostino also found no equal-protection violation.
The truck owners’ claims against the New York State Racing Association, which banned the food truck from the Saratoga Race Course, have settled.
The lawyer for the truck owners, George Carpinello of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, told the Law Blog he planned to appeal the dismissal of the case against New York state.
“We think this is an important First Amendment case and the judge’s reasoning is unprecedented,” Carpinello said. “In essence what the judge said was, anybody who seeks a permit to perform activities on public property is in effect a vendor of the state and their speech becomes state speech. We think, respectfully, that turns the First Amendment on its head.”
