Wild Equity Secures Challenge to Lower Court Opinion

On March 11, 2015 Wild Equity appeared at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in our ongoing legal challenged to the money-losing, endangered species killing Sharp Park Golf Course. A few days later the court issued a short opinion that clears the way for Wild Equity to “vacate” a mistaken element of a district court decision issued in 2012.

Specifically, the Ninth Circuit agreed with Wild Equity that our challenge became “moot” due to intervening events. Wild Equity proposed that the court therefore must either (1) declare the case moot so that the lower court opinion could be vacated, or (2) wield an exception to the mootness doctrine and rule that the lower court opinion was wrong on the merits. The court chose the former option, and now Wild Equity can move forward with vacating the mistaken element of the lower court’s position.

This ruling upholds Wild Equity’s lower court victories finding the Golf Course illegally killed endangered species for years, harming their populations, and ordering the Golf Course to pay nearly $400,000 in court costs for its illegal actions. It also paves the way for new legal challenges against the Golf Course for its actions that harm taxpayers and the environment. Stay tuned for the latest updates in our campaign to Restore Sharp Park.