WHEN NANCY NEMHAUSER and Lubomir (Lubek) Jastrzebski painted their house in the likeness of Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night,” they didn’t expect to become a national sensation. But that’s exactly where they found themselves after city officials trampled their First Amendment rights by ordering them to remove the mural and threatening them with significant fines.
“They said they were willing to fight for us all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, and I knew then that we would win.”
Nancy Nemhauser
In January, Nancy and Lubek faced a code enforcement order to repaint their house while fines of $100 a day piled up. The family felt bullied by the city—they believed their mural was lawful as well as beautiful, but the rising fines put them at risk of losing their home.
As our litigation team reviewed the city code, we realized the city’s sign ordinance was unconstitutional in more ways than one—it was content-based and vague, violating both free speech and due process.
In February, Nancy and Lubek sued, asking a federal judge to stop the coercive fines until he could rule on our constitutional claims. The judge granted our motion the next day. Soon after, the city threw in the towel and offered its proposed settlement.
The long ordeal surrounding the colorful mural on their Mount Dora, Florida, home ended with a bang as numerous cameras carried the city’s public apology on live TV. After a unanimous vote by the city council, the family is free to complete their “Starry Night” mural, protected from any further harassment, while the city revises its unconstitutional sign code.
But as Nancy told CBC Radio in Canada, the apology went the furthest for her husband, who grew up behind the Iron Curtain in Poland:
He’s a very proud American and wants to be able to enjoy his constitutional rights. He felt that what the city did was wrong and that they should apologize…. To him, the apology was probably worth more than anything.
Nancy and Lubek went from feeling hopeless to celebrating a total victory in just six months. Reporters asked Lubek when he knew he was going to win. He answered, “The day I signed a contract with PLF. They said they were willing to fight for us all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, and I knew then that we would win.”