Summum v. Pleasant Grove City, 06-4057.
| Decision Date | 17 April 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-4057.,06-4057. |
| Citation | 483 F.3d 1044 |
| Parties | SUMMUM, a corporate sole and church, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PLEASANT GROVE CITY, a municipal corporation; Jim Danklef, Mayor; Mark Atwood, City Council Member; Cindy Boyd, City Council Member; Mike Daniels, City Council Member; Darold McDade, City Council Member; Jeff Wilson, City Council Member; Carol Harmer, former City Council Member; G. Keith Corry, former City Council Member; Frank Mills, City Administrator, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Brian M. Barnard, Utah Legal Clinic, Salt Lake City, UT, appearing for Appellant.
Francis J. Manion, American Center for Law & Justice, New Hope, KY (Edward L. White, III, Thomas More Law Center, Ann Arbor, MI, Jay Alan Sekulow, American Center for Law & Justice, Washington, DC, and Geoffrey R. Surtees, American Center for Law & Justice, New Hope, KY, with him on the brief), appearing for Appellees.
Before TACHA, Chief Circuit Judge, EBEL, Circuit Judge, and KANE,* District Judge.
The Plaintiff-Appellant Summum, a religious organization, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violation of its First Amendment rights against the Defendants-Appellees, the City of Pleasant Grove, its mayor, city administrator, and city council members. Summum appeals the District Court's denial of its request for a preliminary injunction. We exercise jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) and reverse the District Court's decision.
A city park in Pleasant Grove, Utah, contains a number of buildings, artifacts, and permanent displays, many of which relate to or commemorate Pleasant Grove's pioneer history. For example, the park contains one of Pleasant Grove's first granaries, its first city hall, and its first fire department building. For purposes of this appeal, the most important structure is a Ten Commandments monument, donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1971, two years after it established a local chapter in Pleasant Grove.
In September 2003, Summum, a religious organization with headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, sent the mayor of Pleasant Grove a letter requesting permission to erect a monument containing the Seven Aphorisms of Summum in the city park. In its letter, Summum stated that its monument would be similar in size and nature to the Ten Commandments monument already present in the park. Approximately two months after Summum made its request, the mayor sent Summum written notification that the city had denied its request because the proposed monument did not meet the city's criteria for permanent displays in the park. According to the letter, all permanent displays in this particular park must "directly relate to the history of Pleasant Grove" or be "donated by groups with long-standing ties to the Pleasant Grove community."1 The following year, in August 2004, the city passed a resolution codifying and expanding upon its alleged policy for evaluating requests for permanent displays in the park. The resolution contains a number of factors the city council must consider in deciding whether a proposed display meets a historical relevance requirement. In May 2005, Summum renewed its request, sending the mayor another letter with substantially the same language as the first letter.
When the city did not respond to its second request, Summum filed suit in federal district court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as monetary damages, for Pleasant Grove's violation of Summum's free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution and for the city's violation of the Utah Constitution's free expression and establishment provisions. Summum contends that the city violated its rights by excluding its monument while allowing other permanent monuments of an expressive nature (e.g., the Ten Commandments) to be displayed in the park.2 In an oral ruling on various motions, the District Court denied Summum's request for a preliminary injunction requiring the city to permit the display of Summum's monument in the park. Summum subsequently appealed this decision, arguing that the District Court abused its discretion in denying the injunction based on Summum's First Amendment claim.3
We review a district court's decision to deny a motion for a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion, which we have characterized as "an arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable judgment." Schrier v. Univ. of Colorado, 427 F.3d 1253, 1258 (10th Cir. 2005) (quotations omitted). "A district court abuses its discretion when it commits an error of law or makes clearly erroneous factual findings." Wyandotte Nation v. Sebelius, 443 F.3d 1247, 1252 (10th Cir. 2006). In reviewing the district court's decision, "[w]e examine the . . . court's underlying factual findings for clear error, and its legal determinations de novo." Davis v. Mineta, 302 F.3d 1104, 1111 (10th Cir.2002).
To prevail on a motion for a preliminary injunction in the district court, a moving party must establish that:
(1) [he or she] will suffer irreparable injury unless the injunction issues; (2) the threatened injury . . . outweighs whatever damage the proposed injunction may cause the opposing party; (3) the injunction, if issued, would not be adverse to the public interest; and (4) there is a substantial likelihood [of success] on the merits.
Schrier, 427 F.3d at 1258 (quotations omitted) (alterations in original). But because a preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy and is intended "merely to preserve the relative positions of the parties until a trial on the merits can be held," we have held that the moving party must meet a heightened standard when requesting one of three types of historically disfavored injunctions. Id. at 1258-59 (quotations omitted).
The three types of disfavored injunctions are "(1) preliminary injunctions that alter the status quo; (2) mandatory preliminary injunctions; and (3) preliminary injunctions that afford the movant all the relief that it could recover at the conclusion of a full trial on the merits." O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal v. Ashcroft, 389 F.3d 973, 975 (10th Cir.2004) (en banc), aff'd and , Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao Do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, 126 S.Ct. 1211, 163 L.Ed.2d 1017 (2006). When a preliminary injunction falls into one of these categories, it "must be more closely scrutinized to assure that the exigencies of the case support the granting of a remedy that is extraordinary even in the normal course." Id. A district court may not grant a preliminary injunction unless the moving party "make[s] a strong showing both with regard to the likelihood of success on the merits and with regard to the balance of harms." Id. at 976.
In this case, the preliminary injunction clearly falls within two categories of disfavored injunctions: it alters the status quo and is mandatory. An injunction alters the status quo when it changes the "last peaceable uncontested status existing between the parties before the dispute developed." Schrier, 427 F.3d at 1260 (quotations omitted). The last uncontested status between Summum and Pleasant Grove was one of no relationship between the two parties. Because Summum's monument is not currently displayed in a Pleasant Grove city park, an injunction ordering Pleasant Grove to permit the display of Summum's monument clearly changes the status quo. In addition, by requiring the city to make arrangements for the display of Summum's monument, an injunction would mandate that the city act and would require the district court to supervise the city's actions to ensure it abides by the injunction. Because an injunction would "affirmatively require" Pleasant Grove "to act in a particular way" and would require ongoing court supervision, it is a mandatory injunction. See id. at 1261 (quotations and alterations omitted). Because the injunction falls into two disfavored categories, Summum must have made "a strong showing both with regard to the likelihood of success on the merits and with regard to the balance of harms" to prevail on its motion at the district court level. O Centro, 389 F.3d at 976.
Based on the record, we cannot discern whether the District Court applied this heightened standard. In its oral ruling, the court simply noted that it denied Summum's motion because it failed to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. The court did not analyze the other three factors or explicitly state that it applied a heightened standard to Summum's request. But even if the District Court concluded that Summum could not prevail using the lesser standard, it certainly would reach the same conclusion under the heightened standard. Although the "failure of the district court to apply the correct standard" to a request for a preliminary injunction "amounts to an abuse of discretion," id. at 982 n. 5, any abuse in this case was in Summum's favor. We therefore assume that the District Court applied the heightened standard and review the court's legal conclusions and findings of fact for abuse of discretion.
In its oral ruling on Summum's motion for a preliminary injunction, the District Court indicated that Summum would not prevail on the merits if Pleasant Grove proved it had a well-established policy for evaluating proposed monuments that was reasonable and viewpoint neutral. After finding that the facts regarding the city's policy (or lack thereof) were in dispute, the court concluded that Summum had not established a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. It therefore denied Summum's motion without addressing the other three factors required for issuance of a preliminary injunction.
As we explain below, the District Court abused its discretion by analyzing Summum's First Amendment claim under the incorrect legal standard. But rather than...
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