A lawsuit that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed several years ago against a Utah school which shut down a PETA-sponsored protest is close to being settled after another legal ruling in favor of PETA.

The lawsuit stems from a January 20, 1999 protest that PETA planned to hold outside Eisenhower Junior High School. As we all know, Ingrid Newkirk says that PETA doesn\’t target kids, but this must have been one of those rare exceptions.

Anyway, Eisenhower principal Lori Gardner and Granite, Utah, police Lt. Todd Rasmussen both told the PETA protesters that they would be arrested if they proceeded with the protest. The protesters dispersed and then sued police and school officials for violating their First Amendment rights.

U.S. District Judge Dee Benson had originally dismissed PETA\’s lawsuit, but his dismissal was appealed to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which overturned that ruling and sent the case back to Benson. Gardner and Rasmussen had told PETA protesters that a state statute that bars interfering with educational institutions, but it turned out that the statute only applied to higher education institutions.

Benson subsequently ruled in January that Gardner and Rasmussen had clearly violated the rights of the protesters, though they may be exempt from the lawsuit if they could show they acted reasonably and in good faith.

Instead the Utah Attorney General\’s office decided to settle the case with PETA for $82,000 in attorney\’s fees.

Sources:

Anti-PETA actions ruled improper. Associated Press, January 18, 2004.

State to settle suit over school protest. Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City), February 6, 2004.