Reported / Citable
Background
Berkeley Homeless Union and individual residents challenged the City of Berkeley’s efforts to clear a long-running encampment near Eighth and Harrison Streets. Earlier district-court orders required disability-accommodation processes and imposed limits on removing tents, vehicles, and property. The litigation later intersected with an outbreak risk involving rats and leptospirosis, a potentially serious bacterial disease, and the city argued that incomplete clearance prevented effective pest control.
Berkeley asked the Ninth Circuit for emergency stays in several related appeals. It sought freedom to finish abating the Harrison encampment and also challenged broader aspects of the final injunction, including relief extending to union members elsewhere in the city. The panel considered likelihood of success, irreparable harm, effects on other parties, and the public interest while the merits appeals remained pending.
The Court’s Holding
The panel granted a stay to the extent the district court’s orders prevented Berkeley from clearing and abating the Harrison encampment. Public-health evidence showed that leaving tents and vehicles in place could shelter rats and interfere with eradication measures. That created a serious risk to residents, workers, and the public, and justified allowing the city to complete work at that location while appellate review continued.
The majority did not grant the city all the broader relief it requested. On the existing record, Berkeley had not established entitlement to a stay of every citywide or disability-related requirement. Some objections depended on arguments and procedural positions that were not adequately presented in the emergency papers, and the court distinguished the immediate Harrison health threat from more general municipal interests. A stay preserves positions during appeal; it is not a final decision that the injunction was lawful or unlawful.
Judge Bumatay agreed that the Harrison restrictions should be stayed but would have gone further. His partial dissent questioned the union’s associational standing, viewed the constitutional and Americans with Disabilities Act theories as weak, and argued that federal orders were improperly micromanaging encampment policy throughout Berkeley. The majority responded that the current record did not justify that broader emergency relief.
Key Takeaways
- Berkeley may complete abatement of the Harrison encampment despite district-court restrictions that interfered with the urgent health response.
- The emergency order does not finally resolve ADA, Fourth Amendment, standing, or state-created-danger claims.
- A concrete disease-control record can support a stay even when broader policy objections do not.
- Stay applicants must connect each challenged provision to specific irreparable harm and accurately address their positions below.
Why It Matters
California cities handling encampments should document inspections, laboratory findings, public-health advice, abatement boundaries, accommodation efforts, and why narrower measures will not control the identified danger. A generalized interest in clean streets is different from a supported infectious-disease emergency. The distinction shaped the panel’s willingness to permit work at Harrison without suspending every injunction governing Berkeley.
Lawyers for unhoused residents should likewise separate urgent site-specific measures from permanent or citywide rules and create a record on workable accommodations. The order illustrates how emergency appellate relief can be divided provision by provision. Both municipal and civil-rights counsel should preserve objections in the trial court, explain changed conditions promptly, and avoid treating a stay ruling as a final merits precedent.
Because the appeals involved several orders entered at different stages, the panel also stressed the need to identify exactly which operative restriction produces the claimed harm and which record supports staying it.