The panel said likely success on a First Amendment retaliation claim did not eliminate the need to separately show irreparable harm.
What happened
The Eighth Circuit on Wednesday vacated a preliminary injunction that had kept a North Dakota county park board from evicting four longtime campsite lessees while their First Amendment retaliation case proceeds, ruling that the family had not shown the kind of irreparable harm needed for early court intervention.
In a published per curiam opinion, the panel said the plaintiffs could not rely on the First Amendment label alone to bypass the irreparable-harm requirement for preliminary relief. The court emphasized that "Failure to show irreparable harm is an independently sufficient ground upon which to deny a preliminary injunction."
The dispute arose after members of the Maixner family, who had leased the same lots at Stump Lake Park for years under renewable one-year leases, criticized park facilities, spending and communications during a September 2024 park board meeting. The Nelson County Park Board later voted not to renew their leases, prompting the family to sue under Section 1983 and allege retaliation for protected speech.
The district court had concluded the Maixners showed likely success on their retaliation claim and reasoned that the remaining preliminary-injunction factors could be presumed because the case involved a First Amendment issue. The injunction barred the board from evicting the family from the campsites while the case moved forward.
The Eighth Circuit rejected that shortcut, saying a separate irreparable-harm inquiry was required. The panel distinguished cases involving ongoing or threatened loss of speech rights, noting that the Maixners did not claim an immediate threat to their ability to speak at park board meetings and instead sought damages and lease-related relief for the nonrenewal.
The panel also pointed to the family's request for $450,000 in damages and said they had not shown money would be inadequate to remedy the alleged harm. The opinion vacated the injunction and remanded the case, while expressly declining to decide whether the district court was right that the family was likely to succeed on the merits.