Local News in Brief : Ban on English-Only Rule at Court Upheld
The ban on a short-lived rule requiring that only English be spoken in a Municipal Court in predominantly Hispanic Huntington Park was reaffirmed Wednesday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Gregory Peterson, a lawyer for the three Municipal Court judges who wrote the rule, said he will recommend that the case be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. He cited a lengthy dissent Wednesday in which Judge Alex Kozinski argued that the decision reversed earlier California cases and clashed with rulings elsewhere in the nation.
The judges imposed the ban in 1984 after several non-Spanish-speaking clerks complained that bilingual colleagues made apparently disparaging remarks about them in Spanish. The judges allowed clerks to speak Spanish only when translating for residents who spoke only that language.
A bilingual clerk filed a lawsuit claiming the rule discriminated on the basis of national origin.
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