Miriam Brysk, et al. v. Henry Herskovitz, et al.

Whether the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals improperly affirmed a decision by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan which awarded attorney fees, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988, in the amount of $158,721.75 to the defendant protesters who had been picketing a synagogue in Ann Arbor, Michigan, every Saturday morning, the Jewish Sabbath, starting in September, 2003, for then 19 years, using anti-Semitic signs, such as “Resist Jewish Power,” “Jewish Power Corrupts,” “No More Holocaust Movies,” and the flag of Israel with the Jewish Star of David effaced, in conjunction with signs related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to be paid jointly and severally by the two Jewish plaintiffs, one of whom was a Holocaust survivor, and against the Jewish attorney who had filed the lawsuit in a good faith effort to obtain an injunction placing reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on the anti-Semitic picketing directly in front of the synagogue.

Whether the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals erroneously affirmed the decision by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruling that the claims which the plaintiffs pled in their First Amended Complaint, alleging violations of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985(3), and 1986, were each frivolous, warranting an award of attorney fees against the plaintiffs and attorney pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 in the amount of $158,721.75, where the plaintiffs cited ample legal precedent in in the First Amended Complaint, and in their briefs, in support of each of the claims.