Colorado Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit harassing cake artist Jack Phillips

DENVER – The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit brought by an attorney who’s been harassing cake artist Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, for more than 12 years.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys have been defending Phillips since 2012, when he was first sued for declining to create a custom cake celebrating a same-sex wedding because it violated his religious beliefs. Around that same time, the attorney who filed the most recent lawsuit against Phillips first contacted him, calling him a hypocrite and bigot. For more than 12 years now, Phillips has been relentlessly pursued and mocked by government officials and activists who disagree with his views.

“Enough is enough. Jack has been dragged through courts for over a decade. It’s time to leave him alone,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jake Warner. “Free speech is for everyone. As the U.S. Supreme Court held in 303 Creative, the government cannot force artists to express messages they don’t believe. In this case, an attorney demanded that Jack create a custom cake that would celebrate and symbolize a transition from male to female. Because that cake admittedly expresses a message, and because Jack cannot express that message for anyone, the government cannot punish Jack for declining to express it. The First Amendment protects that decision.”

Phillips won his first case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, when the court found that Colorado officials who punished Phillips acted with hostility toward his faith. That ruling did not address Phillips’s free-speech rights to decline to create custom cakes expressing messages that violate his faith. Now, the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling has ended the most recent lawsuit against Phillips, dismissing the case because the attorney who filed it did not follow the right process. Like the prior win, this ruling does not address Phillips’ free-speech rights.

Just last year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis, which upheld free speech for creative professionals like Phillips. ADF attorneys asked the Colorado high court to apply that ruling and similarly affirm Phillips’ free-speech rights in this case. Though the Colorado Supreme Court did not decide that issue in this case, 303 Creative provides enduring free-speech protection for Phillips.

“We granted review to determine, among other issues, whether [the attorney] properly filed [this] case,” the Colorado Supreme Court wrote in its opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Scardina. “We conclude that [the attorney] did not.”

On the same day the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillips’ first case—in which he prevailed in 2018 after Colorado tried to force him to create a custom cake celebrating a same-sex wedding—an attorney called Masterpiece Cakeshop requesting that Phillips create a custom cake that would symbolize and celebrate a gender transition. The attorney then called again to request another custom cake, one depicting Satan smoking marijuana, to “correct the errors of [Phillips’] thinking.”

Phillips politely declined both requests because the cakes express messages that violate his core beliefs. The attorney then filed the most recent lawsuit, threatening to continue harassing Phillips until he is punished. Phillips serves people from all backgrounds. Like many artists, he decides to create custom cakes based on what they will express, not who requests them.

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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