Gingery v. City of Glendale, No. 14-56440 (9th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseThe City of Glendale installed a public monument in 2013 commemorating the “Comfort Women,” an unknown number of women that South Korea asserts, but Japan disputes, were forced to serve as sexual partners to members of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II and the decade preceding it. A Japanese-American resident of Los Angeles and a non-profit organization filed suit claiming that the installation of the monument intrudes on the federal government’s exclusive foreign affairs power and is thereby preempted under the foreign affairs doctrine. In plaintiffs’ view, Glendale’s monument disrupts the federal government’s foreign policy of nonintervention and encouragement of peaceful resolution of the Comfort Women dispute. The complaint seeks an order declaring Glendale’s installation of the monument unconstitutional and compelling Glendale to remove the monument from public property. The district court dismissed plaintiffs' constitutional claims with prejudice. The court concluded that plaintiffs have standing where the “inability to unreservedly use” Glendale’s Central Park constitutes an injury in fact for purposes of Article III standing. Plaintiffs can also establish that the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action, and that a favorable decision is likely to redress the injury. On the merits, the court concluded that plaintiffs have not plausibly claimed that Glendale’s actions are preempted where Glendale's installation of the monument concerns an area of traditional state responsibility and does not intrude on the federal government’s foreign affairs power. Furthermore, the Supremacy Clause does not preempt a local government’s expression, through a public monument, of a particular viewpoint on a matter related to foreign affairs. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Civil Rights. The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of an action brought by a Japanese-American resident of Los Angeles and a non-profit organization challenging the City of Glendale’s installation of a public monument commemorating the “Comfort Women,” an unknown number of women that South Korea asserts, but Japan disputes, were forced to serve as sexual partners to members of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II and the decade preceding it. The panel first held that plaintiffs had standing because the “inability to unreservedly use” Glendale’s Central Park, where the monument was installed, constituted an injury in fact for purposes of Article III standing. Viewing the complaint’s factual allegations in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, the panel concluded that Glendale’s installation of the monument concerned an area of traditional state responsibility and did not intrude on the federal government’s foreign affairs power. The panel therefore agreed with the district court that plaintiffs had not plausibly claimed that Glendale’s actions were preempted GINGERY V. CITY OF GLENDALE 3 under the foreign affairs doctrine. The panel held that the Supremacy Clause does not preempt a local government’s expression, through a public monument, of a particular viewpoint on a matter related to foreign affairs. Concurring, Judge Korman wrote separately to suggest that the plaintiffs had not alleged a valid cause of action that anchored their claim of foreign affairs preemption.
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