Colorado Supreme Court Dismisses Transgender-Cake Lawsuit against Christian Baker Jack Phillips

The Colorado supreme court on Tuesday dismissed the latest lawsuit against Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips, who was accused in the most recent suit of discriminating against a transgender attorney by refusing to bake a gender-transition cake.

While ruling in favor of the Christian baker, the state supreme court did not weigh in on Phillips’s free-speech rights. Rather, it dismissed the case on a technicality: Plaintiff Autumn Scardina, a man identifying as a woman, did not file the lawsuit correctly in Colorado.

“We granted certiorari to determine, among other issues, whether Scardina properly filed her case,” the Colorado supreme court wrote in its 64-page opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Scardina. “We conclude that she did not.”

In June, Phillips’s attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) argued that Phillips declined to bake the cake because of the message it expressed — not because of the person making the request. Phillips has said the message conflicted with his religious beliefs. If Scardina asked for another cake or baked good that did not go against his values, Phillips says he would have made it.

“The underlying constitutional question this case raises has become the focus of intense public debate: How should governments balance the rights of transgender individuals to be free from discrimination in places of public accommodation with the rights of religious business owners when they are operating in the public market?” Justice Melissa Hart wrote in the Colorado supreme court’s majority opinion. “We cannot answer that question.”

In June 2017, Scardina asked Phillips’s Masterpiece Cakeshop for a gender-transition cake: blue on the outside and pink on the inside. The request was made on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillips’s first case involving a same-sex wedding cake. The cakeshop owner ultimately prevailed in that case a year later, but he would soon face a separate legal complaint for similar reasons.

Scardina also asked for a custom-designed cake depicting Satan smoking marijuana at a later date. After both cake requests were denied, Scardina pursued legal action.

The transgender woman first filed a civil lawsuit, which Colorado officials abandoned after Phillips sued the state government for continuing to target him. But Scardina sued the baker again over the gender-transition cake request — this time in state court.

ADF argued that Scardina did not exhaust all administrative remedies before suing Phillips. The justices wrote that after “having been steered in this direction by Masterpiece’s arguments that Scardina improperly filed her claim anew in the district court,” they found that a provision in Colorado’s anti-discrimination law did not permit the district court that received Scardina’s complaint to take up the case.

“Because of a threshold issue of administrative law and statutory interpretation: Could the district court properly consider the claims of discrimination presented here?” Hart asked. “In light of this dispute’s procedural journey, it could not.”

Tuesday’s decision marks the third failed lawsuit against Phillips and his business in more than twelve years.

“Enough is enough. Jack has been dragged through courts for over a decade. It’s time to leave him alone,” ADF senior counsel Jake Warner said in a statement.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to uphold free-speech rights for creative professionals in 303 Creative v. Elenis. In that case, Colorado graphic designer Lorie Smith, also a Christian, successfully fought for her free-speech rights after refusing to create websites for same-sex weddings.

During its oral arguments this summer, ADF urged the Colorado supreme court’s seven justices to apply the 303 Creative ruling to Phillips’s situation. Despite the court’s decision to not address the defendant’s right to free speech or the free exercise of his religious beliefs, the conservative law firm maintains the 2023 Supreme Court ruling protects Phillips.

“Free speech is for everyone. As the U.S. Supreme Court held in 303 Creative, the government cannot force artists to express messages they don’t believe,” Warner continued. “In this case, an attorney demanded that Jack create a custom cake that would celebrate and symbolize a transition from male to female. Because that cake admittedly expresses a message, and because Jack cannot express that message for anyone, the government cannot punish Jack for declining to express it. The First Amendment protects that decision.”