Steven R. PREMINGER and Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Anthony J. PRINCIPI, as Secretary of Veterans Affairs and in his personal capacity; Elizabeth Freeman, as Director of the Palo Alto Health Care System and in her personal capacity; Helen Girton; Sacha Poulenz; and Myrel Willeford, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 04-16981.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Argued and Submitted May 9, 2005. Filed Aug. 25, 2005.
422 F.3d 815
We also vacate the attorney‘s fee award and remand Dang‘s request for fees and costs under
VACATED and REMANDED.
Michael M. Markman, Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe LLP, Menlo Park, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellants.
Owen P. Martikan, Assistant United States Attorney, San Francisco, CA, for the defendants-appellees.
Before HAWKINS and GRABER, Circuit Judges, and SELNA,* District Judge.
Opinion by Judge GRABER; Concurrence by Judge SELNA.
GRABER, Circuit Judge.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In April 2004, about six months before the November 2004 presidential election, Preminger and his lawyer, Scott Rafferty, along with another California resident, visited the VA Menlo Park Campus with the intent to register voters. The Campus provides care for elderly, homeless, disabled, and psychologically impaired veterans. The veterans are housed in numerous buildings, including Building 331, which provides long-term nursing home care for up to 150 residents.
The April 2004 visit was not Rafferty‘s first. On earlier occasions, he had tried to register voters but had been denied access by VA employees. Rafferty apparently had been disruptive and confrontational with the VA staff when he was told that he could not register voters on the premises. After his first attempt was rebuffed, Rafferty contacted various VA officials and sought their advance permission to register voters at the Campus. Eventually, the Director of the Palo Alto Health Care
Despite this advance permission, when Preminger and Rafferty entered Building 331 in April 2004, a VA employee recognized Rafferty and told the group to leave. The employee then called the VA police, who briefly stopped the men in the parking lot.
After the April incident, Plaintiffs filed this action challenging the VA‘s refusal to allow them to register voters on the Campus. Plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction to prohibit the VA from (1) enforcing
Plaintiffs timely appeal the denial of their motion for a preliminary injunction.
STANDARDS OF REVIEW
We review for abuse of discretion a district court‘s order denying a preliminary injunction. SW Voter Registration Educ. Project v. Shelley, 344 F.3d 914, 918 (9th Cir.2003) (en banc) (per curiam). Our review is limited, affording the district court‘s decision considerable deference. Id. We will reverse if the district court relied on an erroneous legal standard or clearly erroneous findings of fact. Sammartano v. First Judicial Dist. Court, 303 F.3d 959, 964 (9th Cir.2002). We may affirm a decision by the district court on any ground supported by the record, even if the district court‘s reasoning differs from our own. Atel Fin. Corp. v. Quaker Coal Co., 321 F.3d 924, 926 (9th Cir.2003) (per curiam).
DISCUSSION
A. Jurisdiction
Before we address the merits of Plaintiffs’ claim, we must first consider a threshold jurisdictional issue. Plaintiffs mount both a facial and an as-applied First Amendment challenge to VA regulation
Generally, a federal court may review a facial challenge to a regulation promulgated by an agency under its broad federal-question jurisdiction. See
Although we are statutorily barred from reviewing a facial challenge to a VA regulation, we retain jurisdiction to review an as-applied challenge. The application of a rule that is deemed to be (or that the Federal Circuit has held to be) valid to a particular party or individual is neither rulemaking nor an action by the Secretary that requires notice and publication. See Griffin v. Dep‘t of Veterans Affairs, 274 F.3d 818, 820 (4th Cir.2001) (“Griffin II“) (reviewing the constitutionality of VA regulation
In fact, the Fourth Circuit has reviewed a similar First Amendment challenge to the same regulation at issue here,
Plaintiffs argue that, even if the district court lacked jurisdiction to review a facial challenge to
The Federal Circuit already has reviewed a facial challenge to
Accordingly, we now turn to the merits of Plaintiffs’ as-applied challenge to
B. Preliminary Injunction Standards
To prevail on their motion for a preliminary injunction, Plaintiffs must
1. Building 331 is a Nonpublic Forum
Plaintiffs contend that VA regulation
Public property, depending on its character, falls within one of three main categories for purposes of First Amendment analysis. Public fora are places, such as streets and parks, that have traditionally been devoted to expressive activity. Perry Educ. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983). Content-based restrictions in public fora are justified only if they serve a compelling state interest that is narrowly tailored to the desired end. Id. Designated public fora are areas that the government affirmatively has opened to expressive activity, and exclusion from these fora must also satisfy strict scrutiny. Id. at 45-46. Nonpublic fora, areas that have not traditionally or explicitly been open to expressive activity, are subject to a more lenient standard. Id. at 46. Content-based restrictions in nonpublic fora need only be “reasonable and not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker‘s view.” Id.
With that background, we must classify Building 331.5 Plaintiffs con-
In a written guideline regarding partisan activity, the VA has characterized the grounds, entrances, and lobbies of VA premises as “public areas.” Campaigning and Other Partisan Political Activities on VA Premises: Guidelines. But the VA‘s reference to “public areas” does not automatically transform those spaces into designated public fora for First Amendment purposes. See Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 802 (noting that, to create a designated public forum, the government must have acted intentionally to open up the space for public discourse). Moreover, the mere fact that veterans reside in Building 331 does not render it a public forum—it is the government‘s purpose, not the forum‘s users, that informs the characterization of a forum. Designated public fora are not created haphazardly, and the Supreme Court has found them to exist only in places where the government has expressly dedicated the property for expressive conduct. See, e.g., Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 267 (1981) (university meeting facilities); SE Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 555 (1975) (municipal auditoriums). The purpose of Building 331 is not to facilitate public discourse; to the contrary, the VA has established the facility to provide for veterans who require long-term nursing care. Any meetings between those veterans and their visitors are ancillary to the facility‘s primary aim of providing long-term nursing services to veterans.
Consequently, we conclude that Building 331 is a nonpublic forum.
2. Application of the Regulation was Reasonable and Viewpoint Neutral
The VA justified its exclusion of Plaintiffs under
a. Reasonableness
The reasonableness inquiry requires us to examine the VA‘s actions “in the light of the purpose of the forum and all the surrounding circumstances.” Id. at 809. The VA must have more than a rational basis for its actions; the restriction must reasonably fulfill a legitimate need. Sammartano, 303 F.3d at 967. Yet, in a nonpublic forum, the restriction need not constitute the least restrictive alternative available. Swarner v. United States, 937 F.2d 1478, 1482 (9th Cir.1991).
b. Viewpoint Neutrality
Even if the application of
The contours of viewpoint neutrality analysis are often difficult to discern. See id. at 970 (“We freely admit that the Supreme Court‘s concept of viewpoint neutrality in First Amendment jurisprudence has not been easy to understand.“). In this instance though, we are aided by applicable precedents from both the Supreme Court and this circuit.
The Supreme Court has held that, in a nonpublic forum, the government has “the right to make distinctions in access on the basis of subject matter and speaker identity.” Perry Educ. Assn., 460 U.S. at 49; id. at 49 n. 9 (noting that a school board‘s decision to limit union access to a school‘s internal mail system was viewpoint neutral because all unions, except for the recognized bargaining representative of the teachers, were excluded and there was no indication that the policy was implemented to suppress a particular message). Even more specifically, we have upheld a distinction very similar to the one that Plaintiffs challenge here. The postal service enacted a regulation that allowed only government agencies and non-profit civic leagues to register voters, but excluded political parties from doing the same. Monterey County, 812 F.2d at 1195. The local Democratic Party challenged that regulation, claiming that it violated their First Amendment right to engage in expressive
The VA asserts that it excludes all political parties and there is nothing to suggest that the VA “intended to discourage one viewpoint and advance another.” Id. at 1198. In light of Monterey County and the Supreme Court‘s holding that, in a nonpublic forum, distinctions on the basis of speaker identity are permissible, the district court did not abuse its discretion by holding that Plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits.
3. Plaintiffs Did Not Demonstrate Significant Irreparable Harm
The preliminary injunction analysis does not end with a review of the possible merits of Plaintiffs’ claim. We must turn next to the potential for irreparable harm and to the balance of hardships that will result from a denial of Plaintiffs’ motion. Overstreet, 409 F.3d at 1207. The smaller the probability of a plaintiff‘s success, the greater must be the showing of irreparable harm. A & M Records, 239 F.3d at 1013.
Because the district court properly held, at the preliminary injunction stage, that Plaintiffs did not show a probability of success on the merits, to prevail on their motion they had to show significant irreparable harm. This they failed to do. Their inability to register residents of Building 331 until the outcome of a trial on the merits does not, on this record, outweigh the VA‘s legitimate interest in providing the best possible care for veterans on the Campus and in maintaining political neutrality for the benefit of Campus residents.
4. The Public Interest Does Not Require an Injunction
Finally, we must consider the public interest. See Westlands Water Dist. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, 43 F.3d 457, 459 (9th Cir.1994) (“If the public interest is involved, the district court must also determine whether the public interest favors the [plaintiffs]“). “The public interest inquiry primarily addresses [the] impact on non-parties rather than parties.” Sammartano, 303 F.3d at 974. Generally, public interest concerns are implicated when a constitutional right has been violated, because all citizens have a stake in upholding the Constitution. See, e.g., id. (noting “the significant public interest in upholding First Amendment principles“). Because Plaintiffs have not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their First Amendment claim, because the VA has a competing public interest in providing the best possible care, in a politically neutral environment, for the veterans seeking services from the Campus, and because other means are available for registering resident veterans to vote, the public interest does not require us to reverse the district court.
To conclude, we cannot say, on this record, that the district court abused its discretion by denying Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.
AFFIRMED.
SELNA, District Judge, concurring:
I concur in the Judgment and in the Opinion with the exception of Section B.2.b
