Vivid Files Brief Appealing Denial of TRO to Ninth Circuit

LOS ANGELES—Attorneys for plaintiffs Vivid Entertainment, Califa Productions, Logan Pierce and Kayden Kross today filed their appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding Judge Dean D. Pregerson's denial of a full temporary restraining order (TRO) in plaintiffs' lawsuit against LA County Measure B.

Specifically, plaintiffs ask the Ninth Circuit to deal with three questions:

1) Whether the District Court erred by substantially editing definitions and substantive provisions to preserve portions of the County of Los Angeles Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act, codified at Los Angeles County Code Chapter 11.39 (“Measure B”), which had been passed as a ballot initiative to target “adult films,” after the court preliminarily enjoined most of the ordinance as a prior restraint?

2) Whether the District Court erred in refusing to preliminarily enjoin Measure B in full based on evidence submitted by putative Intervenors who lack Article III standing but were allowed to remain as parties below even after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry, 133 S. Ct. 2652 (2013)?

3) Whether the District Court erred in refusing to preliminarily enjoin Measure B in full after finding that the adult film productions at issue are protected by the First Amendment and that Measure B imposes a prior restraint?

One question that will remain at this level is whether AIDS Healthcare Foundation and some of its employees and contractors, which were allowed to enter the case as intervenors, will even be able to argue against this appeal, since by their own logic, they are barred by lack of standing from arguing its case at the appeals level.

Check back later today for a full analysis of this breaking legal news development.