Southern California Constitutional Litigation Attorneys

In 2003, attorneys with LiMandri & Jonna LLP led the firm into its first foray into pro bono constitutional and religious liberty litigation. That year, the firm filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court regarding whether including the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance violated the First Amendment.

Since that time, LiMandri & Jonna LLP has developed a nationally renowned constitutional, religious liberty, and free speech practice, with three U.S. Supreme Court victories. LiMandri & Jonna LLP’s cases have been highlighted in Politico, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, the Los Angeles Times, National Review, the Washington Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and even Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Some of LiMandri & Jonna LLP’s cases have included:

• Free Exercise of Religion challenges to governmental mandates that employers provide their employees with health insurance that covers contraception and elective abortion
• Establishment of Religion / Separation of Church and State challenges to improper religious instruction in public schools and to governmental condemnation of religious beliefs
• Free Speech / Academic Freedom challenges to censuring or censoring of professors and administrators
• Free Speech / Free Exercise of Religion challenges relating to wedding professionals’ right to opt out of a same-sex wedding, and relating to government employees’ right to opt out of attending political events
• Free Speech / Free Press challenges to statutes criminalizing the recording of matters of public interest
• Free Exercise of Religion challenges by nonprofits seeking equal access to governmental licenses and benefits
• Church Autonomy / Entanglement Doctrine challenges to efforts to punish a church’s disciplining of a cleric, and to efforts to criminalize the seal of the confessional
• Amicus curiae briefs on behalf of individuals such as Prof. Robert P. George, Ryan T. Anderson, Washington State Legislators, South Carolina Legislators, and organizations such as the Ethics & Public Policy Center, the Catholic Medical Association, Catholic Answers, the Catholic League, and the Missouri Baptist Convention.

LiMandri & Jonna LLP has represented Christian churches and nonprofits, Catholic dioceses and nonprofits, investigative journalists, renowned professors and scholars, pastors, priests, bishops and monks, and private individuals. As part of its constitutional law practice, LiMandri & Jonna LLP has successfully taken cases all the way from lengthy, month-long trials to the U.S. Supreme Court.

When able, LiMandri & Jonna LLP has also offered pro bono representation. To facilitate this, LiMandri & Jonna LLP has partnered with various nonprofits over the years. Currently, the firm serves as Special Counsel to Thomas More Society, based in Chicago, IL. Attorneys with LiMandri & Jonna LLP previously handled many of these cases for Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, based in Rancho Santa Fe, CA. LiMandri & Jonna LLP has also partnered with Alliance Defending Freedom and Thomas More Law Center.

Below is a selection of LiMandri & Jonna LLP’s most notable cases.

Supreme Court Victories

• Mirabelli v. Bonta:

In April 2023, LiMandri & Jonna LLP filed suit on behalf of two teachers, Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, against officials with the Escondido Union School District and the California Department of Education. California required the teachers to use students’ preferred names and pronouns at school while concealing students’ gender identity from their parents—using one name and set of pronouns in the classroom, and another when speaking with parents. Believing this forced them to deceive parents in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs, the teachers challenged the policy as a violation of their freedom of speech and free exercise of religion. In September 2023, LiMandri & Jonna LLP obtained a groundbreaking preliminary injunction protecting their rights.

LiMandri & Jonna LLP subsequently amended the complaint to convert it into a class action, add more teachers, add parents, and add Attorney General Bonta as a defendant. In October 2025, the federal district court certified a statewide class of California public school parents and teachers. Then, in December 2025, the district court granted summary judgment and issued a classwide permanent injunction, declaring that parents have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their child expresses gender incongruence at school, and prohibiting California schools from misleading parents about their children’s gender presentation. The Ninth Circuit stayed the injunction pending appeal, but on March 2, 2026, in a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the stay as to the parents, reinstating the injunction while the appeal proceeds and giving LiMandri & Jonna LLP its third Supreme Court victory. The Court held that the parents were likely to succeed on their Free Exercise and Due Process claims, because California’s policies substantially interfered with parents’ right to guide the religious development of their children and to participate in consequential decisions about their children’s mental health.

The decision, which Thomas More Society called “the most significant parental rights ruling in a generation,” was covered by the Associated Press, Fox News, the San Francisco Chronicle, SCOTUSblog, and the ABA Journal.

• South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom:

LiMandri & Jonna LLP was retained by South Bay Pentecostal Church, a member of the United Pentecostal Church International and located in the South Bay region of San Diego County, California. South Bay Pentecostal Church challenged Governor Newsom’s early May 2020 decision to permit numerous industries to reopen, but exclude places of worship. On Friday, May 22, 2020, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s refusal to enjoin Governor Newsom’s discriminatory treatment of churches, and the next day, Saturday, May 23, 2020, South Bay Pentecostal Church filed an emergency application for a writ of injunction with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Two days later, Monday, May 25, 2020, Governor Newsom amended his orders, permitting churches to open at 25% occupancy, or 100 persons, whichever was lesser. The next Friday, May 29, 2020, on a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant further relief. Later in the year, Governor Newsom closed churches again, and early the next year, on a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with South Bay Pentecostal Church that the closure order was unconstitutional, granting LiMandri & Jonna LLP its second Supreme Court victory.

In addition to South Bay Pentecostal Church, LiMandri & Jonna LLP represented Grace Community Church based in Los Angeles County, California, and Father Trevor Burfitt, SSPX, prior of five churches in Southern California. For Grace Community Church, LiMandri & Jonna LLP obtained the first court order statewide limiting California’s restrictions on churches, when the firm blocked the County of Los Angeles’s attempt to have a California Superior Court order Grace Community Church to close its doors. The County of Los Angeles later rescinded its church closure order after determining internally that it was unconstitutional.

For Father Trevor Burfitt, after one of his churches was issued an administrative citation for letting a few people pray by themselves in the church, LiMandri & Jonna LLP obtained a court order enjoining Governor Newsom, four counties, and two cities from enforcing their orders closing Father Burfitt’s churches. The story of these legal battles was recounted in the book Unlocking the Churches and the documentary The Essential Church.

• Defense of Mt. Soledad Cross War Memorial:

In 2004, Charles LiMandri joined the longest-running religious liberty fight to date—the defense of the Mt. Soledad Cross War Memorial. The litigation began in May 1989, when a disgruntled individual sued the City of San Diego arguing that maintenance of a large cross in the middle of the war memorial violated constitutional separation of church and state principles. In December 1991, a federal district court judge ordered that the presence of the cross violated the California Constitution and ordered its removal from public property within three months. In February 1992, the City of San Diego complied with the court order by agreeing to sell the land immediately beneath the cross to the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association. A few months later, in June 1992, San Diego voters overwhelmingly ratified the sale. In the meantime, the City of San Diego also appealed the order to the Ninth Circuit, which in March 1993 affirmed the district court.

Not content with the result, the plaintiff filed a motion to enforce the district court’s order. In September 1997, the district court judge ordered that the sale of the land to the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association itself had violated the California Constitution, but did not clearly explain how to cure the violation. In 1998, the City of San Diego sold more of the land surrounding the Mt. Soledad War Memorial to the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association. In February 2000, the district court accepted the sale as constitutional, and this was affirmed by a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel in August 2001. However, in June 2002, the Ninth Circuit sitting en banc ruled in a 7-4 opinion that the second sale of land also violated the California Constitution.

After Mr. LiMandri became involved as counsel for the City of San Diego, in December 2004, the U.S. Congress passed a bill designating the Mt. Soledad War Memorial as a national memorial, such that it could be maintained by the federal government if ownership of the property was transferred to it. At the time, it was believed that transfer of the land to the federal government would cure the constitutional issues because the courts had only ruled that there had been a violation of the California Constitution—not the U.S. Constitution. In July 2005, San Diego voters overwhelmingly voted to donate the land to the federal government. Again discontented with the result, the plaintiff filed a new lawsuit in California Superior Court, alleging that the transfer of land to the federal government violated the California Constitution, an argument with which the trial court agreed.

In May 2006, the federal district court issued a new order enforcing its prior orders. In that order, the district court specifically ordered that the cross had to be removed, and that for every day it remained, the City of San Diego would face a $5,000 fine. The Ninth Circuit refused to stay the order pending the appeal, but Justice Kennedy granted the City’s request for a stay. This was the firm’s first Supreme Court victory.

In August 2006, the U.S. Congress passed a new bill, taking possession of the land surrounding the Mt. Soledad War Memorial through eminent domain. That same month, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. government, alleging that maintaining the Mt. Soledad Cross on federal land violated the U.S. Constitution. Then, in November 2006, the California Fourth Appellate District reversed the trial court, ruling that the July 2005 ballot measure was permissible under the California Constitution.

In July 2008, the federal judge presiding over the new cases against the U.S. government ruled that the cross could remain. But in January 2011, the Ninth Circuit reversed that order, holding that the presence of a cross on federal land was unconstitutional. In June 2012, the Supreme Court’s decided to not accept the case for review at that time, yet Justice Alito wrote separately to explain how the cross should be left alone. In December 2013, the district court ordered the cross removed, in line with the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, but stayed its order pending another appeal. In July 2015, the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association bought the land surrounding the memorial from the U.S. government. In September 2016, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the pending appeal, holding that it was now moot since the land had been transferred from the federal government.

In June 2019, Justice Alito authored the opinion in American Legion v. American Humanist Association. In that opinion, the Supreme Court made clear that the presence of historical crosses on public property was constitutional, and that efforts to scrub all historical references to Christianity from public land would actually constitute unconstitutional hostility to religion. Justice Alito’s opinion makes clear that the cross in the middle of the Mt. Soledad War Memorial was constitutional all along.

An interview with Mr. LiMandri discussing this case is available here.

Other Notable Wins

• Defense of San Pasqual Academy:

San Pasqual Academy in Escondido is a first-of-its-kind residential high school for foster youth, with family-style homes, an on-site school, and graduation and college-attendance rates far exceeding those of foster youth generally. In 2021, citing changes in state and federal foster care law, the California Department of Social Services ordered the Academy closed, and San Diego County went along. In August 2021, LiMandri & Jonna LLP filed suit on behalf of residents, alumni, and staff, arguing that the 2015 Continuum of Care Reform Act specifically provided for the Academy’s continued operation.

On December 3, 2021, the San Diego Superior Court agreed, finding that the State and County had misinterpreted the statute and enjoining the State from terminating the Academy’s license. The next month, the County Board of Supervisors voted to keep the Academy open, and in June 2022 the parties settled, with the State agreeing not to object to the Academy’s house-parent model and the State and County paying the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees. San Pasqual Academy continues to serve foster youth today.

• Californians for Equal Rights Foundation v. State of California:

In 2016, California passed legislation requiring the State Board of Education to create a model curriculum for local school districts to use in teaching Ethnic Studies. When the State Board of Education adopted the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum in March 2021, it included various resources for teachers to use in the classroom—among them, prayers to the Aztec gods Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, and Xipe Totec. The rationale for including the prayers was that the separation of church and state is a Western-centric concept that hinders authentic teaching about indigenous traditions.

LiMandri & Jonna LLP filed suit on behalf of various concerned citizens, arguing that including the prayers in the model curriculum violated the Establishment Clause. The parties ultimately settled the case. As part of the settlement, the defendants agreed to remove the prayers from the school resource guides, to notify school districts that the prayers had been removed and should not be used, and to pay the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees.

• Children of the Immaculate Heart v. Cal. Dep’t of Social Services:

Children of the Immaculate Heart (“CIH”) is a well-established Catholic nonprofit serving victims of sex trafficking in San Diego County. Because of its success working with adult women, in 2015 CIH began the process of obtaining a license to operate a home for minor girls who were sex-trafficked, called “the Refuge.” But after four years of government stonewalling and nearly $600,000 in sunk costs, the Refuge sat empty due to state bureaucrats’ insistence on barring a religious organization from having care over minor girls.

The California Department of Social Services, which regulates California’s foster system, refused to license the Refuge because of Children of the Immaculate Heart’s sincere religious beliefs about human sexuality. The Department mandated that CIH allow “transgender” males to live at the home, dispense gender-transition chemicals, and drive girls to get abortions.

In November 2019, after learning about the four years of stonewalling, LiMandri & Jonna LLP brought a civil rights complaint in San Diego Superior Court. Instead of proceeding to substantive briefing or a trial, in March 2020 the parties participated in mediation. Following a confidential settlement, CIH was granted a provisional license permitting it to operate the Refuge. An interview with Paul Jonna discussing the case is available here.

• Four Christian Firefighters v. City of San Diego:

In 2007, four Christian firefighters were ordered over their objection to participate in the San Diego Gay Pride Parade. During the parade they were subjected to obscene gestures and vulgar catcalls. Further, when they would not respond to various sexual overtures, some attendees at the Pride Parade became hostile, and subjected the firefighters to insulting words and gestures.

Following the Pride Parade, the firefighters met with the San Diego Fire Chief—herself a member of the LGBT community—and requested an apology and a change in policy permitting firefighters to abstain from participating in the Pride Parade in the future. The City of San Diego refused these terms, and so Mr. LiMandri brought a lawsuit for freedom of speech violations (i.e., compelled expression) and sexual harassment. Before trial, San Diego relented and changed its policy so that no firefighter would be forced to participate in political events in the future, including the Pride Parade.

However, the case proceeded to trial in September 2008 on the sexual harassment claim, and following a re-trial, the jury found that the firefighters had been subjected to unlawful discrimination. The verdict in their favor was upheld by California’s Fourth Appellate District on October 14, 2010, and the California Supreme Court denied further review on January 26, 2011. An interview with Mr. LiMandri discussing the case is available here.