Bruni v. City of Pittsburgh

A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, censorship-zone law, similar to a Massachusetts law the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2014, prohibits speech and advocacy—including prayer—in painted zones outside medical facility entrances. The city chose to paint and enforce such censorship zones on the public sidewalk outside only two facilities in the entire metropolitan area—Pittsburgh’s two abortion facilities—targeting face-to-face conversations by pro-life sidewalk counselors.

Case timeline

• September 2014: ADF attorneys first challenged the Pittsburgh law in federal court.
• March 2015: The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania refused to halt the unfair law and partially dismissed the lawsuit. So, ADF attorneys appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
• June 2016: The Third Circuit said that the lower court had failed to follow Supreme Court precedent. The court even said in its opinion that the Pittsburgh law “imposes the same kind of burden on speech” as the Massachusetts law struck down by the Supreme Court in McCullen.
• November 2017: Despite the Third Circuit opinion, the lower court issued another ruling upholding Pittsburgh’s anti-free speech zones.
• January 2018: ADF attorneys appealed to the Third Circuit again.
• February 2019: Oral arguments for the case were held.
• October 2019: The Third Circuit issued its ruling. While the court recognized the constitutional problems with Pittsburgh’s law, it claimed to narrow the law to say that the ban doesn’t apply to sidewalk counseling, only prayer or standing quietly while holding a sign or wearing buttons. It then upheld the ban as constitutional.
• March 2020: ADF asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear this case, because federal courts can’t simply rewrite local laws to save them from unconstitutionality.
• January 2021: The Supreme Court denied our petition, leaving the ruling from the Third Circuit in place.