Marshall's Law

St. Patrick's Day Prompts Legal Problems

By Marshall H. Tanick, Attorney at Law

"I'm troubled, I'm dissatisfied, I'm Irish." - Poet Marianne Moore, Spenser's Ireland (1941)

St. Patrick's Day is a day of celebration in honor of the legendary Irish cleric who reputedly drove the snakes out of Ireland. Nonetheless, the commemorative day may also trigger legal issues. Minnesota jurisprudence is rife with cases regarding St. Patrick's Day and related topics.

A gay man, thrown out of a health club because of his sexual preference, as manifested when he danced an Irish jig with another man on St. Patrick's Day, prevailed in a discrimination lawsuit in Blanding v. Sports & Health Club, Inc., 373 N.W. 2d 784 (Minn. App. 1985), affirmed without opinion, 389 N.W. 2d 205 (Minn. 1986).

The case arose under a provision of the St. Paul Human Rights Ordinance barring discrimination by public facilities based upon affectional preference, before a similar provision was added to the Minnesota Human Rights Act. The claimant was awarded compensatory and punitive damage of $15,000, after his membership in a health club was terminated when he was observed on St. Patrick's Day dancing an Irish jig.

The Court of Appeals affirmed that the impulsive four or five-second dance step...[that] would not be considered obscene, perverted, or unlawful to the community at large. Regardless of sexual preference, everybody must have the same right to do a quick, impulsive dance step in a public place as other members of society. The termination of his membership due to that incident constitutes the type of discrimination and public accommodations that is unlawful under the affectional preference provision of the city ordinance.

The Blanding case was a precursor to another St. Patrick's Day tussle over affectional preference in Hurley v. American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, 515 U.S. 557 (1995). The U.S. Supreme Court held that the public accommodations law of Massachusetts which prohibits discrimination based upon sexual orientation, could not require organizers of the St. Patrick's Day parade in Boston to allow the gay, lesbian, bisexual group to march in the parade carrying its own banner. Such action would violate "fundamental" First Amendment rights and take away the autonomy of the parade organizers to choose the content of [their] own message.

Car Cases
A private automobile liability insurance policy of the owner of a taxi cab covered an accident that occurred while he was privately transporting a couple to a St. Patrick's Day party in St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Knoph, 251 Minn. 366, 87 N.W. 2d 636 (1958).

The coverage issue turned on whether the driver was using his car as a public or livery conveyance at the time of the accident, an issue that has generated little case law because the exclusionary language was of comparatively recent origin. Reversing a ruling of the Hennepin County District Court, the Supreme Court held that the driver was not acting as a public conveyance but was merely rendering a service to an 'Irishman' by taking him to a St. Patrick's Day party. Because it involved one isolated instance, the accident did not convert his car to a public or livery conveyance. Thus, the exclusion was inapplicable and the driver's own personal insurance applied.

Another case resulted in a DUI conviction that was upheld after a St. Patrick's Day car accident in State v. Miller, 2000 WL 462366 (Minn. App. 2000) (unpublished). While in custody, the driver was allowed to seek an attorney at around 8:15 p.m., but was unable to locate one in a 15-minute span before he agreed to an alcohol test, which reflected intoxication. The Ramsey County District Court refused to suppress the result and convicted him based on stipulated facts.

The Appellate Court affirmed, but did kindly disregard the suggestion by the prosecution that counsel was readily available on the evening of St. Patrick's Day because a group of defense attorneys, anticipating a high volume of alcohol-related arrests, had made arrangements to be available on an on-call basis under the "St. Paddy's Day strike force." Nonetheless, the drunk driver was given adequate opportunity to reach an attorney before deciding whether to take an alcohol test. While 15 minutes to reach an attorney is not always adequate, on the totality of facts, the driver's right to counsel was vindicated.

An additional DUI conviction was also upheld, of a driver leaving a bar in Austin on St. Patrick's Day in State v. Bishop, 2005 WL 2128134 (Minn. App. 2005) (unpublished). The Appellate Court affirmed a conviction by the Mower County District Court, holding that an officer, who was tipped off by the bartender, observed the driver changing lanes without signaling. This violation of Minn. Stat. §169.19, constitutes a reasonable, articulable suspicion to support the investigatory stop that led to an arrest for driving while impaired.

Another St. Patrick's drinker was unsuccessful in suing for disability discrimination in Larson v. Koch Planning Company, 920 F. Supp. 1000 (D. Minn. 1996). U.S. District Court Judge, Paul Magnuson, dismissed the wrongful termination lawsuit for disability discrimination attributable to alcoholism. The employee claimed that the employer knew of his alcoholism because he called into work early on St. Patrick's Day and asked for permission to miss work that day and the following day, which the employee put the employer on notice of his alcoholism because drinking is a traditional part of the St. Patrick's Day holiday. Since the employee previously had been told that a short-notice request for leave was inappropriate, the employer's rejection of time off on such short notice on St. Patrick's Day does not constitute knowledge of [the employee's] disability.

Robbery Rulings
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a pair of robbery convictions stemming from incidents occurring on St. Patrick's Day.

In U.S. v. Allen, 406 F. 3d 940 (8^th Cir. 2005), the defendant was convicted of capital armed robbery of a bank on St. Patrick's Day, during which a security guard was killed. Following remand, the Court en banc held that the death sentence was not defective because the indictment failed to include at least one statutory factor referencing mens rea, as required under the Federal death penalty statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3593(a).

Not reciting these elements in the indictment was a harmless error under the Fifth Amendment - right to indictment by a grand jury for a capital offense. The testimony before the grand jury indicated that the robbers were firing shots during the robbery. While planning the heist, the robber threatened to kill anyone who tried to stop him and the culprits fled the scene in a flaming gasoline-saturated vehicle containing explosives into a large park on St. Patrick's Day.

Another St. Patrick's Day robbery yielded a conviction that withstood challenge in Johnson v. Wyrick, 653 F. 2d 1234 (8^th Cir. 1981). A group of robbers held up a tavern and its patrons in the wee hours of the morning following St. Patrick's Day.

Affirming denial of a writ of habeas corpus, the Eighth Circuit held that the in-court identifications by a barmaid and others were not tainted because they were shown pictures of the defendant before trial. Although the pretrial displays may have been suggestive, under the totality of the circumstances, the identifications of the robbers were reliable.

Green Gambit
A prosecutor's gambit to win favor with Irish jurors did not warrant reversal of conviction for criminal sexual conduct, terroristic threats and second degree assault in State v. Cuellar, 2005 WL 1870008 (Minn. App. 2005) (unpublished).

Convicted in Ramsey County District Court of attacking and terrorizing his wife, the defendant claimed prosecutorial misconduct during voir dire, which occurred on St. Patrick's Day because the prosecutor related personal information to the jury, stating that she was "a little Irish," and expressing disappointment that only three of the panel members wore green on that special day.

The Court of Appeals, rejected the contention that the prosecutor's remarks constituted an effort to predispose jurors to be favorable to her, which the defendant claimed was particularly troublesome because he was Latino. Viewing of the entire voir dire in the context of the trial as a whole, there was no improper attempt by the prosecutor to ingratiate herself with the panel members.

The Irish have a great history in Minnesota and elsewhere that would make others green with envy. As these cases reflect, their legacy has been felt in a wide variety of litigation in this state.

*In honor of St. Patrick's Day, Mansfield, Tanick & Cohen has decided to rerun the above article which was written and published in 2006.

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Marshall H. Tanick is an attorney with the law firm of MANSFIELD, TANICK & COHEN, P.A., in Minneapolis and St. Paul. He is certified as a Civil Trial Specialist by the Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA) and represents employers and employees in a variety of workplace related matters.