## Facts

- A nonprofit women’s health clinic in Portland, Oregon provided medical services including abortions, gynecological care, and counseling.
- Anti-abortion organizations and individuals conducted regular demonstrations outside the clinic beginning around 1984.
- The clinic alleged demonstrators obstructed entrances and exits, harassed patients and staff, and generated noise audible in treatment and counseling areas on the second floor.
- The clinic and related plaintiffs sued asserting federal civil-rights and state-law claims; the case was removed to federal court.
- The federal civil-rights claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1985(3) and 1986 were dismissed; the court retained jurisdiction over pendent state-law claims.
- After hearings, a magistrate found the demonstrations disrupted clinic operations and recommended preliminary injunctive relief.
- The district court entered a preliminary injunction restricting certain conduct, including blocking access, demonstrating in a 25-foot zone from the front door to the curb, and making loud or otherwise disruptive noise that substantially interfered with medical services.
- When violations continued, the district court held several defendants and organizations in civil contempt.
- Defendants appealed the preliminary injunction and related contempt orders.

## Issues

1. Whether the preliminary injunction failed Rule 65(d) and due process requirements by using insufficiently definite terms (including noise restrictions without objective decibel limits).
2. Whether the injunction’s buffer zone and noise restrictions violated the First Amendment as impermissible restraints on speech and assembly in a public forum.
3. Whether the civil contempt orders could stand if the injunction was vague or unconstitutional.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the grant of the preliminary injunction but modified certain language to clarify the prohibited conduct.
- The court held the injunction was sufficiently specific under Rule 65(d) and provided fair notice.
- The court held the injunction was a content-neutral time, place, and manner restriction that served significant interests and left open alternative channels of communication.
- The court affirmed the civil contempt orders because the injunction, as upheld and clarified, was valid and enforceable.

## Legal Principles

- Rule 65(d) requires an injunction to describe restrained or required acts in reasonable detail, sufficient to give fair notice; technical precision is not required when ordinary terms reasonably inform those bound.
- An injunction is impermissibly vague only if it fails to give fair notice of prohibited conduct or authorizes arbitrary enforcement; functional standards may be acceptable where objective measurement is impractical.
- Content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions in a public forum are permissible if justified without reference to content, narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, and leaving open ample alternative channels.
- Protecting patient access, health and safety, and the orderly operation of medical facilities are significant governmental interests that can justify limited buffer-zone and noise restrictions aimed at obstruction and disruption.
- Civil contempt findings may be upheld where the underlying injunction is valid and sufficiently clear to provide notice of prohibited acts.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction limiting obstructive and disruptive protest activity at a medical clinic, concluding the order (as clarified) satisfied Rule 65(d) and due process and constituted a permissible content-neutral time, place, and manner restriction; related civil contempt sanctions were affirmed.


Portland Feminist Women’s Health Ctr. v. Advocates for Life, Inc., 859 F.2d 681 (9th Cir. 1988)