Colleen Reilly v. City of Harrisburg, 858 F.3d 173

Harrisburg ordinance bans knowingly congregating, patrolling, picketing, or demonstrating within 20 feet of any entrance/exit/driveway of a health care facility; applies regardless of speech content.
Plaintiffs (Reilly and Biter) engage in "sidewalk counseling" outside abortion clinics and challenged the ordinance as an unconstitutional buffer zone violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction to enjoin enforcement; the District Court denied the injunction for failure to show likely success on the merits.
The District Court had allowed most substantive constitutional claims to proceed (finding the ordinance content-neutral and subject to intermediate scrutiny) but required Plaintiffs to bear the usual burden on likelihood of success at the injunction stage.
The Third Circuit reviewed the denial of the preliminary injunction, concluded the district court misallocated burdens under First Amendment precedent, clarified the correct preliminary-injunction framework, vacated and remanded for reconsideration.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Proper standard for preliminary injunction	Transamerican’s four-factor balancing with thresholds for likelihood and irreparable harm; flexible balancing thereafter	N/A (dispute internal to courts)	Third Circuit reaffirms Transamerican: movant must meet two gateway factors (likelihood of success and irreparable harm); if met, court balances all four factors in its discretion.
Burden allocation in First Amendment preliminary relief	Because the Government bears the ultimate burden on constitutionality, Plaintiffs should be deemed likely to succeed unless the City shows less-restrictive alternatives are less effective (Ashcroft/Gonzales rule)	City argued parties did not brief this rule and district court properly required Plaintiffs to show likelihood of success	Held for Plaintiffs on burden point: district court erred by placing the burden solely on Plaintiffs; on remand the City must bear its First Amendment tailoring burden at the injunction stage.
Application to Harrisburg ordinance (content neutrality and tailoring)	Ordinance creates an impermissible buffer zone preventing effective counseling; not narrowly tailored	City defends ordinance as content-neutral time/place restriction promoting safety and access	Court declined to decide merits; remanded to District Court to apply clarified injunction standard and allow City to prove narrow tailoring.

Del. River Port Auth. v. Transamerican Trailer Transport, Inc., 501 F.2d 917 (3d Cir. 1974) (articulates the traditional four-factor preliminary injunction framework).
Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008) (Supreme Court’s formulation of prerequisites for preliminary injunctions).
Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418 (2009) (reaffirms balancing of harms and discusses the two most critical factors).
Ashcroft v. ACLU, 542 U.S. 656 (2004) (First Amendment burden-shifting—government must show less-restrictive alternatives are ineffective).
Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006) (burdens at preliminary stage track burdens at trial in First Amendment contexts).
Opticians Ass’n of Am. v. Indep. Opticians of Am., 920 F.2d 187 (3d Cir. 1990) (example of conflicting Third Circuit panel authority requiring movant to satisfy all four factors).