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Posted: July 8, 2005
A federal appeals court rejected the claim of a woman represented by the ACLU who said she was offended by Christmas displays at a city hall.
Grace C. Osediacz sued the city of Cranston, R.I., asserting that the religious displays -- erected along with secular displays by members of the public in an area designated by the city -- violate the so-called "separation of church and state."
But a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit ruled unanimously Wednesday that Osediacz had no standing to bring her claim. "This is the court's message: You can't sue just because you're an offended observer," said Benjamin Bull, chief counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, or ADF.
ADF-allied attorney Tom Marcelle represented the city in the case.
"The appeals court today," Bull continued, "rejected what has been a longstanding ACLU tactic -- filing lawsuits simply for the reason that somebody claims to be offended. The Christmas displays in Cranston were perfectly constitutional, just as the district court ruled."
Last November, a federal district court ruled that Cranston's practice of allowing private holiday displays, including religious displays, on the front lawn of City Hall does not violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, which says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."
The district court granted an injunction against the city on other grounds at that time, but the appeals court Wednesday threw out the injunction, saying that Osediacz had no standing to sue.
In Wednesday's opinion, the three-judge panel wrote, "The Constitution requires that litigants have a personal stake in a case before they may sue in a federal court., and this plaintiff has not provided facts sufficient to show that she possesses such a stake."
U.S. District Court Judge William Smith wrote last year that nothing in the city's public statements or in its implementation of the policy for its Christmas displays "reveals or even remotely supports an inference that a religious purpose was behind the creation of the limited public forum," as the ACLU's lawsuit alleged.