Unlike a sibling federal court in a similar case (see that court’s TRO order below), a Florida court has declined an emergency motion challenging government officials’ coronavirus-related shut-down and stay away orders.
This is the case we’ve been following in which property owners challenge the local government’s order that they stay off beaches. The difference between this and other cases ordering people to keep away from beaches and parks is that in this case, the beaches are alleged to be private. The complaint is posted here.
Although we do not yet have a written order denying the TRO, the court’s minute order notes, “the Court orally denies the Emergency Motion.” See also “Judge rules against Walton beach property owners who sought exemption from closure order” from the local newspaper, which reported on the hearing:
During the hearing Vinson delved, at times, into the overriding issues that Walton County has faced for years now with its beaches and ongoing battles over what white sand coastline can be construed as public or private property.
“This case boils down to the definition of what is the beach,” he said, asking an attorney for the Sheriff’s Office if, under the existing ordinance, sanctions could be levied for someone sitting in a chair in the sand outside their back door.
“You can’t have the sheriff saying you can’t go out into your back door, five or 10 feet from your back door,” Vinson said. “To anyone looking at the beach, sometimes you can’t tell where the beach really ends. Where does the beach end? That is the gray area I think we are really concerned with.”
In order to have won the emergency injunction, Safriet’s team was required to convince Judge Vinson that the property owners would have been likely to win at trial. He ruled Monday he did not believe that to be the case.
He also debunked the property owners’ argument that they would suffer irreparable harm if the injunction were not granted and that granting it serves the public good.
Vinson also expressed concern with the way the county’s amended ordinance is “construed and applied.”
He postulated an arbitrary distance of 10 yards from a permanent structure should be considered a safe space on a beach property from which the county emergency ordinance could not be applied.
“Public beach on the Gulf of Mexico is not defined by legal ownership, but by what is the beach,” Vinson said.
If you want to get a sense of what arguments are in play, here are the briefs of the parties (as well as one defendant’s motion to dismiss, which is not yet scheduled for a hearing):
- Property Owners’ Memorandum in Support of the Present Plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion for a Preliminary Injunction
- Walton County’s Response in Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion for Preliminary Injunction
- Motion to Dismiss by Sheriff Michael A. Adkinson, Jr.
The reason we posted the order granting a TRO in the other challenge (a case in which the plaintiffs do not assert a taking, but focus on their First Amendment rights to practice their religion), is that the plaintiffs in the Florida beach case argued that it was instructive about how the Florida court should consider the issue. In addition, it is an interesting read for any of you keeping up on the multiple challenges to shut-down orders nationwide.