Alta Snowboarding Petition Rejected (Again)
In a single page order the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has refused to re-hear the lawsuit filed by the snowboarding Wasatch Equality.
The court had already ruled against the group, which claimed that denying snowboarders access to the slopes of Alta Ski Area violates their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because Alta leases its land from the government. Equal protection claims have typically been used in cases involving discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender and, most recently, same-sex marriage. In their April judgement the Court of Appeals found that “even if we grant all reasonable inferences in Wasatch’s favor, the pleaded facts at best establish that each year the Forest Service—with knowledge of the snowboard ban—reviews and approves Alta’s site plan and receives from Alta a usage fee.
This isn’t enough to establish state action for purposes of the FourteenthAmendment. See Blum, 457 U.S. at 1004-05. Because Wasatch’s complaint doesn’t plausibly establish state action, we affirm the district court’s Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal. And because this conclusion controls all issues on appeal, we decline to address Wasatch’s challenges to the district court’s alternative rulings. The only route open to the group is to appeal to the US Supreme Court, though a statement on their facebook page “We gave it our all. Thanks to everyone for the amazing support” suggests they think it’s game over. -