Burning Man, Pershing County lawsuit settled
By Jenny Kane, Reno Gazette-Journal
While Burning Man and Pershing County officials settled a lawsuit over First Amendment rights and money three years ago, the matter finally and officially has been settled in a federal appellate court.
In the decision released by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, Chief Judge Sidney Thomas struck down the previous 2014 ruling of District Court Judge Robert Jones, whom Thomas chastised for rejecting the parties’ settlement in the first place.
Jones called the settlement “illegal, unenforceable and absurd” at the time. He erred because the court’s jurisdiction had expired and because Jones ignored “the parties’ clear intentions to resolve the matter,” Thomas wrote in the decision.
