United States Tenth Circuit

In a suit brought by a religious organization against a city and council members for alleged violations of its First Amendment free speech rights in the city's denial of a request to erect a permanent monument in the park while it allowed others to do so, summary judgment for the city on plaintiff's request for prospective injunctive relief is reversed and remanded as: 1) the sale to a private party of a small plot of land in a public park, upon which a Ten Commandments monument had been built, did not necessarily relieve the property of its status as part of a public forum; 2) the district court failed to analyze the underlying validity of the land transfers at issue; 3) a transfer to the Lions Club was invalid under state law, and a remand was necessary to determine the validity of the other; and 4) once such validity is determined, the constitutional issue of the property's forum status can be analyzed.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/17/2007
• Published 04/18/2007

Judges

• TACHA, Chief Judge., Before TACHA, Chief Judge, EBEL, Circuit Judge, and KANE, District Judge.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Brian M. Barnard (James L. Harris, with him on the briefs), Utah Legal Clinic, Salt Lake City, UT, appearing for Appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Francis J. Manion, American Center for Law & Justice, New Hope, KY (Geoffrey R. Surtees, American Center for Law & Justice, New Hope, KY, Edward L. White, III, Thomas More Law Center, Ann Arbor, MI, and Cindy Barton-Coombs, Duchesne City Attorney, Roosevelt, UT, with him on the briefs), appearing for Appellees.