Court Opinion

ID: 9455827
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:34:47.052514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:45.060662
License: Public Domain

ORDER
PER CURIAM.
This cause came on for consideration on appellants’ motion for summary reversal or for stay pending appeal, and on appellees’ motion for summary affirmance, and the Court heard argument of counsel. On consideration of the foregoing, it is
ORDERED by the Court that the order of the District Court entered on November 6, 1969, appealed from herein, is reversed, and this case is remanded to the District Court with directions that said Court proceed to trial on an expedited basis, and it is
FURTHER ORDERED by the Court that the preliminary injunction entered in the District Court on April 26, 1969, as modified by this Court’s opinion of June 24, 1969, 137 U.S.App.D.C. 176, 421 F.2d 1111 shall remain in effect pending conclusion of the trial in the District Court or until further order of this Court.
PER CURIAM:
This case involves an action instituted by several citizens groups seeking declaratory judgment that certain regulations of the Department of the Interior restricting picketing in front of the White House to 100 persons and in Lafayette Square to 500 persons are unconstitutional.
When this action1 was previously before the court it approved a temporary injunction, pendente lite, that established a notice system enabling the government to avoid proposed picketing threatening the President’s safety. A Quaker Action Group v. Hickel, 137 U. S.App.D.C. 176, 421 F.2d 1111. On the merits the District Court (June 24, 1969) granted the government’s motion for summary judgment. Appellants seek summary reversal, the government a summary affirmance.
The District Court erred in adjudicating the issues in summary fashion. Summary judgment was granted partially on the basis of affidavits of Secret Service officials, submitted by the government, which enumerated factors pertaining to the safety of the President and integrity of the White House, which factors they believe justify imposing the restrictions in question. Thus at least one issue in this case is the perennial question of the reasonableness and validity of a regulation which impinges on the exercise of constitutionally protected rights. Second, it would appear that the issue raised by the allegations of discriminatory administration of the regulations is still a via*187ble one. We are guided in highlighting the second issue by the findings of the District Court in its earlier decision to grant a preliminary injunction to the appellant group before us. At that time the District Court found that the permit system had been subject to maladministration. Those findings were not negatived or superseded by any findings in the disposition on the merits.
Both of these issues are deserving of further exploration by the full processes of a trial on the merits, not simply by presentation of untested affiants’ statements and lawyers’ arguments. In this way, the issues may be clarified, substantiated, and resolved after having been subjected to the rigors of an evidentiary hearing. Nor is there any reason why this process of illuminating facts and issues should not go forward in an accelerated manner in the District Court. We further point out that this case is being returned to the District Court for a complete determination on the merits, for treatment as a res nova. Nothing this court has said or is saying should be taken as directed toward a decision of the issues on their merits, since all prior decisions have been directed at resolving the issue of preliminary injunctive relief only.
This case cannot be disposed of by reference to a legislative authority to prohibit all picketing in front of the White House. For even assuming such legislation would be consistent with the Constitution, questions would arise whether that prohibiting authority has been delegated to the Interior Department, and further, whether it could be exercised by internal administrative action of subordinate officials rather than regulations duly exercised by the head of the cognizant department or agency. Moreover, a legislative authority to prohibit all picketing would not comprehend the power to authorize an administrative permit system that tolerated picketing for favored groups and denied it to others ; obviously serious constitutional questions are involved in a regulation according such administrative latitude, questions that are not eased by the findings of discriminatory application previously made in this action by the District Court. The authority to prohibit all picketing does not establish as a corollary the authority to establish unreasonable rules for determining which picketing will be permitted and which denied. It may be that the 100-500 criteria evolved by subordinate officials will be found to be reasonable and authorized, but that is to be determined after a hearing at which evidence, that may be tested on cross-examination, establishes the reasons for the regulatory provisions and the feasibility of others that provide satisfactory safeguards against violence with less interference with the right of peaceful protest.
The District Court expressly found that the 100-500 criterion was put forward in 1967 by the regional director of the National Park Service — not in a regulation or even public notice, but in an internal memorandum to subordinate officials administering the permit system —as a means of achieving traffic control and avoidance of damage to park greensward and shrubbery. We may assume that the consideration of need to avoid danger to officials, put forward in 1969, may be taken into account by the Park Service as a reason for continuing the standard. But that, too, must be subject to evidentiary testing, and cannot be taken on affidavits alone as a conclusive ipse dixit.
In reversing, we are nullifying a decision which by summary judgment dismissed the action and dissolved the modified preliminary injunction then in effect. This process leaves a void in the critical area of providing security in the vicinity of the White House. It is obviously necessary that some interim rule be promulgated. We think that the limited findings as to the misuse of the permit system warrants reinstitution of the notice system delineated in the modified preliminary injunction. We choose the notice system not only because of the suspicion cast upon the earlier permit system, but also because the govern*188ment has not contended that the notice system is objectionable because of any of its administrative aspects, such as length of time required.2 3 So far as we are now advised the notice system satisfies its contemplated objective of providing the government sufficient opportunity, at least during an interim period, to take preventative measures should the government feel that safety of the President is endangered. We reverse and remand with directions to proceed to trial on an expedited basis.
So ordered.

. The preliminary injunction granted by the District Court pending trial on the merits suspended the operative effect of the regulations in a finding that they were unconstitutionally violative of first amendment rights. This court declined to set aside the preliminary injunction, but modified it to permit the enforcement of the regulation to the extent of requiring that groups seeking to picket give notice fifteen days in advance. This arrangement contemplated that the government could thereafter seek injunctive relief on the basis of realistic concern for the safety of the President in the particular circumstances presented by any such notice.

. This is regarded by plaintiffs as a class aetion, and it was treated as a class action by this court in its prior opinion. The interim system in effect, pendente lite, has been treated by all parties as calling for notices by any group. The Government did not advance the claim that the injunction ran in favor of only plaintiffs, possibly in the thought that any such approach would be so productive of intervention applications and other litigation as to be counter-producfive of effective processing of notices in the interest of peace and order.