From Joseph v. City of San Jose, a case brought by self-described "astrobiologist" Rhawn Joseph, and decided yesterday by Magistrate Judge Robert Illman (N.D. Cal.):
… Plaintiff's neighbor installed certain lighting equipment that had the effect of illuminating a portion of Plaintiff's home, as well as several trees and vines on Plaintiff's property. To put it briefly, Plaintiff was somewhat displeased with his neighbor's use of that lighting equipment so he erected certain large polyurethane panels to block the lights; {Plaintiff [had] believed that his neighbor's "lights were damaging Plaintiff's trees by attracting pests, and [] Plaintiff was concerned for the health of his trees which symbolized Plaintiff's religious beliefs as indicated by the Celtic Crosses in Plaintiff's yard and set within and between Plaintiff's [c]ypress trees."}
[W]hen the City of San Jose complained that the panels (as well as Plaintiff's cypress trees) were in violation of certain municipal code provisions, citations issued, and then administrative proceedings ensued, and the ultimate result was that Plaintiff removed the polyurethane panels himself but was not required to cut or remove his trees, or to pay any fines or fees, and the instant lawsuit nevertheless ensued. [Plaintiff was also required to prune certain vines between the trees] …
Plaintiff's first claim relies on the First Amendment and suggests that his "trees are expressions, symbols of his religious beliefs and are a protected form of speech" and that "Defendants' demand that Plaintiff destroy these trees is not only unlawful and without any legal authority … but a violation of the First Amendment: Freedom of religion and freedom of speech … Defendants must pay damages to Plaintiff, according to the formula of $2,500 per day per defendant, per cause of action, to compensate for the injuries suffered." …
{Plaintiff denies having any religious affiliation or—strictly speaking—any religious beliefs, instead, he described himself as subscribing to a more generalized and nebulous spirituality that he explained as being rooted in quantum physics and celestial mechanics as such:
[A]ctually they're more like spiritual beliefs and those beliefs are embedded in quantum physics in the sense that everything is related and everything is connected. The separation thing is an illusion on the quantum physics level and I believe that plants and trees have consciousness. When I go out in the forest, I can almost, like, feel the consciousness. I think some people mistake that as being fairies or ghosts, but I think there's a collective consciousness among trees and experiments have shown that plants are aware of threat. Using galvanic monitoring of plants, somebody says I'm going to burn you and the plant responds. And we also know that there's certain hormones and transmitters that plants—that are in the human brain or neurotransmitters involved of (sic) transition of though, and we know that some people feel like talking to their plants can help their growth.
