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10 Feb 2023: ACTGC filed suit in Orleans Civil District Court asserting a possessory action arguing that NOAC has unlawfully deprived the general public of its centuries old right, under custom and statutory law, to free and reasonable access to NOAC's public cemeteries. ACTGC members have multiple specific interests in preserving their right to access St. Louis Nos. 1 & 2 that give them standing to bring a possessory action on behalf of the general public. NOAC argues that its cemeteries are "privately owned" "religious cemeteries," but under Louisiana law a "religious cemetery" may not be a "privately owned cemetery." See La. Revised Statute 8:1(39).
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6 Jan 2023: U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied our two appeals from erroneous district court rulings. In doing so, the Fifth Circuit relied on arguments that are not supported by the cases cited by NOAC and Cemetery Tours NOLA LLC. We decided not to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for reasons made obvious by that court's rulings over the past few decades. It has rather consistently favored religious and pro-business litigants rather than the public interest and individual rights. We frankly didn't want to give that court another opportunity to drastically change long-standing precedent.
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1 Sep 2022: ACTGC files notice of appeal from the District Court's judgment dismissing ACTGC's entire case. ACTGC is currently preparing its appellate brief.
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22 Feb 2022: ACTGC files notice of appeal from the District Court's denial of our motion for preliminary injunction stopping the defendants from excluding the public and other city-licensed tour guides from St. Louis No. 1. That appeal is currently scheduled for oral argument the week of December 5, 2022.
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19 Jan 2022: ACTGC became a division of the New orleans Association of Tour Guides and Companies, which was established this day to unite the industry in defense against arbitrary legislation and unlawful acts against the city walking and bus tour industry.
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18 Jan 2022: The City of New Orleans administration announced in a tightly moderated meeting that it had decided to cut the current 28 person walking tours in the city to 14 persons and 7 for cemetery tours, along with other arbitrary changes, without bothering to consult the industry beforehand.
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6 Jan 2022: Oral argument in our litigation to enforce Louisiana law ensuring free and reasonable access to public cemeteries.
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10 Nov 2021: ACTGC took over litigation in federal court against New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries and New Orleans Tours LLC to stop them from monopolizing and fixing the prices of cemetery tours at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, the most popular cemetery in the city regularly receiving more than 70% of the city's cemetery tour visitors, before they cut out all competition at the end of 2021.