West
'Christmas Lawyer' files for Supreme Court review in battle with HOA over holiday light show
The self-described “Christmas Lawyer,” who staged elaborate holiday displays in defiance of his former homeowners association, is asking the nation’s highest court to weigh in on the neighborhood feud.
“Who would have thought that nine Justices of the United States Supreme Court are about to sit down over Christmas and read a legal case involving a fundraiser to help families with children suffering from cancer that involves Dolly the Camel, 700,000 Christmas lights, a children’s choir and the REAL SANTA CLAUS testifying in federal court,” Jeremy Morris told Fox News Digital in an email.
Morris, an attorney, gained international prominence in 2015 for throwing a five-day holiday light show that drew thousands of revelers to his former home just outside of Hayden, Idaho, to the dismay of some of his neighbors.
His subsequent fight with his HOA over alleged religious discrimination reached the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled earlier this year partially for Morris, and partially for the HOA.
Jeremy Morris’ five-day Christmas light show to raise money for charity began in 2014. When he moved to a new neighborhood the following year, his homeowners association tried to stop him from repeating the event. (Courtesy Jeremy Morris)
‘CHRISTMAS LAWYER’ WHO WENT TO WAR WITH HIS HOA IS NOW FACING ANOTHER FIGHT — THE IDAHO STATE BAR
The HOA had until Dec. 19 to file an opposition to Morris’ latest petition, but declined to do so. Attorney Peter Smith said that’s because justices are unlikely to take the case. The Supreme Court is asked to review more than 7,000 cases each year and usually agrees to hear fewer than 100.
“[T]his case does not warrant the Court’s attention given it is an isolated dispute between a homeowner and a homeowners association,” Smith, who is representing the HOA, wrote to Fox News Digital.
Origins of the Christmas light fight
Morris made an offer on a house near Hayden just after throwing his inaugural light show at his previous home over Christmas 2014.
He informed the West Hayden Estates homeowners association that he planned to repeat the event and the HOA immediately tried to squash the Christmas display, arguing it would likely violate three sections of the community’s covenants, conditions and restrictions. The event would be too big, too noisy and too bright, the board wrote in a letter sent to Morris in January 2015.
Crucially, the letter also pondered whether “non-Christians” would be offended by the display. Morris wrote back, arguing that there was nothing applicable to his event in the CC&Rs and that the board was engaging in religious discrimination. His family closed on the house and moved in.
The HOA board sent this letter to Jeremy Morris in January 2015, outlining rules they believed his Christmas display would violate and worrying that residents who were “non-Christians” might object to the program. (Fox News Digital)
HOA HORROR STORIES: GEORGIA HOMEOWNERS SHARE NIGHTMARISH LEGAL BRAWLS
When Morris started hanging hundreds of thousands of individual bulbs on his house à la Clark Griswold, the HOA’s attorney sent him a letter threatening legal action if he hosted the event without approval from the board.
Morris didn’t back down. Musicians, a children’s choir, a live nativity scene and even a camel greeted spectators. Morris rented shuttle buses to carry visitors to the event, and volunteers directed cars through the streets around the house, according to court documents.
Tensions grew leading up to the Morris family’s 2016 show. Neighbors were accused of harassing spectators, and Morris said his family received threats, including an in-person confrontation partially caught on camera in which a neighbor offered to “take care of him.”
Morris previously told Fox News Digital he didn’t want to take legal action and offered to waive his rights to proceed with a lawsuit if the HOA agreed to leave his family alone. The HOA refused, he said, and the statute of limitations was almost up on the original letter.
Jury unanimously sided with Morris in discrimination lawsuit, but judge flipped the verdict
Morris sued in January 2017, alleging religious discrimination in violation of the Fair Housing Act. A jury unanimously sided with him and ordered the HOA to pay $75,000.
But Judge B. Lynn Winmill took the unusual step of flipping the verdict and ordering Morris to pay the HOA more than $111,000 in legal fees, concluding the case wasn’t about religious discrimination, but rather the Morris family’s violation of neighborhood rules.
Morris, who has since moved out of Idaho, appealed. His case went before the 9th Circuit in June 2020 and waited four years for a ruling.
In 2018, a jury unanimously agreed that the HOA discriminated against the Morris family when it tried to stop their Christmas show. But the following spring, the federal judge who oversaw the trial made the rare move of flipping the verdict. (Courtesy Jeremy Morris)
‘STOP THE NONSENSE’: LAWMAKERS IN ONE STATE MOVE TO GIVE HOMEOWNERS MORE RIGHTS IN HOA DISPUTES
A three-judge panel affirmed Winmill’s overturning of the jury verdict, concluding that a reasonable jury should not have found the HOA letter from 2015 indicated a preference that a “non-religious individual” buy the Morrises’ home.
But the panel also determined there was enough evidence supporting the jury’s conclusion that the HOA board’s “conduct was motivated at least in part by the Morrises’ religious expression,” according to the more than 100-page ruling.
The 9th Circuit ruling allowed for a new trial, but Morris appealed to the Supreme Court instead. He has “several attorneys potentially lined up” to represent him, and said he’s hopeful his case will appeal to the justices, noting that it encompasses several constitutional rights.
“The right to celebrate Christmas in accordance with our family’s faith traditions, to use our property to express that Christian faith tradition, and the right to have a unanimous jury verdict protected after 15 hours of deliberations — all are at the core of Constitutional protections and 250 years of American jurisprudence,” he wrote.
Smith previously told Fox News Digital that the HOA “categorically denies it interfered with the Morrises’ right to purchase and enjoy their home free from discrimination” and “has always strived to foster an inclusive and welcoming environment for all residents.”
Around 349,000 Idahoans live in neighborhoods governed by HOAs, just under 20% of the state’s total population, according to 2021 data from the Foundation for Community Association Research.
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MOAB, Utah (KUTV) — Two wildfires that ignited along the Utah-Colorado border in Grand County have merged and were mapped at about 28,000 acres, according to Utah Fire Info.
Officials named the blaze the Snyder Fire. It was burning in Mesa County, Colorado.
Officials said the fire was threatening structures and that pre-evacuation orders were in effect.
According to the Moab Valley Fire Department, the wildfires started between 11 p.m. Friday and 3:30 a.m. Saturday on Bureau of Land Management land south of the Colorado River.
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Summer is Wyoming’s season for turning over rocks, poking into holes and walking with a perpetual hunch looking for snakes.
Herpalogists, the zoologists who study amphibians and reptiles, are out scouring the landscape and herping, the term used when they are actively flipping rocks and searching stream beds to find Wyoming’s elusive snakes in their native habitats.
Sometimes those finds can be unexpected. The fork-tongued reptiles appear on a trail when least expected.
Recently, a foot-long “nightcrawler” suddenly moved like a snake and slithered into the rocks, its tail disappearing into the shadows. Rather than a shapeshifter, this was an elusive rubber boa, Wyoming’s tiny constrictor snake that can look like a giant worm at first glance.
These rarely seen creatures are more common in the Cowboy State than most people realize.
“I personally don’t feel that any of our snakes in Wyoming are terribly rare,” said Matt Rasmussen, vice president of the Wyoming Herpetological Society. “However, a lot of them are very rarely encountered because they spend most of their lives either underground or under rocks.”
Rasmussen said most of the secretive snakes in Wyoming only come out at night or when conditions are right — typically warmer, humid times. The rubber boa, for instance, showed up on a day when it had rained and then the temperatures spiked hot.
Rasmussen helped found the new Herpetological Society two years ago to teach others to herp. He said it’s possible to learn more about our state by flipping rocks and seeing what is beneath.
“That’s the great thing with Wyoming,” Rasmussen said. “There is so little known about the herpetofauna — the frogs, lizards, snakes, turtles, etcetera — that live here, and so little known about their distribution.”
He said Wyoming is known for “large charismatic megafauna” such as bison, elk, moose and deer rather than the harder to find animals. As a result, no widespread surveying has been done on smaller non-game species. Wyoming Game and Fish has even asked for community members to help by reporting rarely seen reptiles and amphibians.
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The Great Basin gopher snake is a non-venomous snake found primarily in the western United States and parts of southwestern Canada. You can find these snakes in a wide range of habitats; grasslands, woodlands, and deserts. -
The plains hognose snake can be mistaken for a rattlesnake but is harmless to humans. -
The Eastern yellow-bellied racer is incredibly fast, alert, and primarily hunts during the day using their sharp eyesight. Harmless to humans but feisty and will bite and musky-spray if cornered or handled. -
The smooth green snake is completely non-venomous, quite secretive and rarely seen. The Wyoming Natural Diversity Database said they are mostly found in localized pockets within southeast and south-central Wyoming and the Black Hills area. Their habitat are moist meadows, marshes, stream edges, open woods since they can camouflage in lush vegetation. This snake feeds almost exclusively on insects and spiders such as crickets, grasshoppers and caterpillars.
Elusive, Not Rare
While most people think of the more common bullsnake or venomous rattlesnake when discussing reptiles, Rasmussen said Wyoming is home to many harmless snakes.
According to Rasmussen, a few snakes, such as the colorful pale milk snake and rubber boa, could be considered rare in Wyoming. However, he believes they are just harder to find and most people are not aware of them unless they stumble across them.
“There’s the plains black-headed snake, which we really don’t know much about their distribution in Wyoming,” Rasmussen said. “They’re just not studied and have a limited habitat.”
This tan snake with a black head is small and feeds primarily on centipedes and ant eggs. Rasmussen cautions that when found, rather than kill the strange looking snakes that are harmless, report finding them to Wyoming Game and Fish and leave them in their habitat.
In this way, Rasmussen said, herping can be fun. He encourages people to get into the action.
“There are some other really small fossorial snakes like smooth green snakes, which live along creeks in the mountains and eat caterpillars and spiders,” Rasmussen said. “Then there’s the Black Hills red-bellied snake, which is a very small snake that eats slugs, worms and snails primarily.”
People are often surprised that Wyoming is home to such a large variety of snakes. He especially likes to show off a milk snake, which is harmless and eats lizards and even baby rattlesnakes.
“It is a beautiful, almost tropical-looking animal that lives right here,” Rasmussen said. “They are just rarely encountered.”
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The northern rubber boa is found in the northwest corner of state such as Star Valley and east into the Bighorn Mountains. They are a small, docile, non-venomous constrictors that are rarely seen since they are excellent burrowers and climbers. The Wyoming Game and Fish consider them vulnerable/secretive and track sightings to help build their statewide database. -
The pale milk snake is not a venomous coral snake and is found in the Bighorn Basin, eastern plans and southeastern corner of Wyoming. They are rare to see because they spend their life hiding under rocks, within rocky outcrops, badland scarps, ponderosa pines, and shortgrass prairies according to the University of Wyoming. Since they are so secretive, spotting one in the wild is a rare treat and Wyoming Game and Fish is asking the public to report any sightings for their database. -
The plains black-headed snake is completely harmless because it’s mouth is too small to pierce human skin and its mild venom is for small invertebrates. Due to its secretive nature, it is rare to see one but they are known to be in southeastern Wyoming in the Platte and Carbon Counties. They are very small, secretive, burrowing snakes that spend almost all of their lives underground or hidden beneath rocks and logs, typically only surfacing at night. -
The bull snake or gopher snake is completely non-venomous but does not want you to know that. When threatened, they put on a dramatic show according to the National Park Service. The bullsnake will puff up their bodies, hiss loudly, flatten their head into a triangle and vibrate their tails in dry bush to mimic a rattlesnake. (Matt Rasmussen)
A New Snake & Frog Society
Rasmussen said the new society is trying to educate the community about these fascinating creatures in the Cowboy State that don’t get much attention, such as the skink, a short-legged lizard.
“We’re a group of herpetological enthusiasts who would like to spread the word, educate and do outreach about these animals,” he said.
This outreach includes presentations with live animals, field trips and a conference in November. Wyoming’s reptiles and amphibians remain a mystery, Rasmussen encourages reporting sightings on the app iNaturalist.
“Even if you don’t know what it is, post a picture because there are tens of thousands of experts who will identify that animal,” Rasmussen said. “That’s really important, especially for our herpetofauna in the state.”
He also pointed out that some Wyoming snakes are on the protected list, including the midget faded rattlesnake. They made the list, according to Rasmussen, because people were capturing them and they became popular in among owners who like to keep small venomous snakes as pets.
Rasmussen said awareness is the best protection for Wyoming’s elusive reptiles and he is excited to prove to residents that we don’t have rare snakes, only secretive ones.
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
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