Submitted 5 months ago by Kolanaki@yiffit.net to [deleted]
Just saw a thing about Minnesota’s flag contest and some joker suggested using California’s flag which I started overthinking about which leads us here. If Minnesota actually changed their state flag to California’s state flag, could California sue Minnesota? 🤔
It's not the answer you're looking for, but in the US, even if nothing illegal is being done, you can always sue. That doesn't mean you will win, but you can always sue.
My understanding is it depends on if there’s a certain level of creativity that went into elements of the design, versus being comprised only of plain geometric shapes, etc.
You could ask Monaco and Indonesia, though perhaps that only works if the party appropriating the design is orders of magnitude larger.
Haiti and Lichtenstein had the same flag and didn’t realize it until the Olympics.
I thought this was about programming
litchralee@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I’m not a lawyer, but I’m willing to have some fun with this idea.
A cursory review of the relevant California Government Code section 420 – *blaze it! *-- provides a description of the California state flag, and also a picture of it. Or it would in the print version of the code. While there doesn’t appear to be a specific bit of law which authorizes the state to retain the copyright on the flag, there is case law which disallows the state from retaining copyright for “government documents”, with exceptions which wouldn’t apply here. So it’s reasonable to assume that California doesn’t have the copyright on its state flag, with it likely being in the public domain.
This would suggest that Minnesota could indeed use the flag to mean something else, the same way anyone can with public domain material. Now, if this occurs outside of California, that state could not enforce any sort of rules pertaining to how the flag is used. Even within the state, California’s authority to control how public domain material – or more broadly, any material at all – is circumscribed by the First Amendment in any case. The exception would be for those agencies and subdivisions of the state itself, which it can and does control. See Gov Code section 435, which disallows cities from having confusingly similar flags. But this doesn’t really speak to the flag being used by another sovereign entity within the state.
Supposing for a second – and this is where we’re really departing from reality – the several states had embassies at each other’s state capitals, but without the equivalent protections afforded by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relationships. And by that, I mean each state buys land in other states. In such a case, if the Minnesota Embassy in Sacramento were to fly the flag of California as its own, what could California do? If they drafted a law like section 435 that applies to individuals, the First Amendment would present a barrier. If the law applies to out-of-state entities, it might run against the Dormant Commerce Clause, in a very broad interpretation of interstate commerce. If they apply it to all sovereign entities operating within the state – which would include the Minnesota Embassy, since the State of Minnesota owns it – then the thorny question of state sovereign immunity in state court would arise.
In a California state court, would the State of Minnesota have sovereign immunity? If instead of Minnesota, it were a foreign country like Scotland, the answer would be a resounding yes. But here is a state vs state issue. The proper venue would be a court with original jurisdiction over states, and there’s only one of those: the US Supreme Court.
As to what the state of California would assert as a cause of action? I suppose they could raise a criminal violation of their freshly-drafted law, with the risk of devolving into whether a US State has its own rights of free speech, which other states must respect. Alternatively, they could raise an action in equity, such as a tort (MN’s use of the flag is costing CA somehow) or defamation (MN’s use of the flag asserts falsehoods about CA).
At this point, we’re deep into legal fanfiction and it’s time to stop haha. Needless to say, I think the situation in real life would be messy if it were to happen.
vivadanang@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Minnesota isn’t gonna troll CA. If anyone, it should be the Virginia getting trolled because Minnesota is already so fucking good at it.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28th_Virginia_battle_flag
litchralee@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
MN is based. Long live l’Etoile du Nord!