Practices
Related Practices
Horvitz & Levy successfully represented the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority and related entities in this preliminary injunction appeal arising out of a long-running lawsuit in which animal rights activists are seeking access to certain areas in and around the Oracle Arena in Oakland, in order to protest the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The district court issued a series of preliminary injunctions that granted plaintiffs broad access to the public property surrounding the arena for purposes of their speech activities, but prohibited protests within a 10 foot buffer zone around the entrance to the area where the animals were housed. The district court also granted defendants’ request to modify the injunction to allow the erection of a fence around a small portion of the parking lot to protect circus vehicles and other property. Plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s orders, holding that the buffer zone was a reasonable regulation of the time, place and manner of plaintiffs’ speech, given the risk of congestion at the entrance and the legitimate security concerns raised by defendants.