UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT STEVEN HUBBARD; AMY No. 24-4613 BAACK, D.C. No. 3:24-cv-00972- Plaintiffs - Appellants, CAB-MMP v. CITY OF SAN DIEGO; DOES 1-10, OPINION

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Cathy Ann Bencivengo, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted March 5, 2025 Pasadena, California

Filed June 4, 2025

Before: Mary H. Murguia, Chief Judge, and Gabriel P. Sanchez and Holly A. Thomas, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge H.A. Thomas 2 HUBBARD V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

SUMMARY*

First Amendment

In a case in which two yoga teachers challenge the City of San Diego’s prohibition against teaching yoga to four or more persons at the City’s shoreline parks or beaches on First Amendment grounds, the panel reversed the district court’s denial of plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction and remanded with instructions to enter a preliminary injunction in their favor. Plaintiffs challenged the City’s prohibition against teaching yoga both on its face and as applied to their teaching activities. The district court found that the First Amendment does not protect the teaching of yoga. Alternatively, it determined that the City’s prohibition was a valid time, place, and manner restriction. The panel held that plaintiffs made a clear showing that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their as-applied First Amendment claim. Teaching yoga is speech protected by the First Amendment. A person who teaches yoga communicates and disseminates information about yoga’s philosophy and practice through speech and expressive movements. The City’s shoreline parks are traditional public forums, and the City’s prohibition on teaching yoga is content-based; the City’s ordinance defines regulated speech by particular subject matter, drawing distinctions based on the meaning a speaker conveys. Because the ordinance is not content-neutral, it did not qualify as a valid time, place, and * This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. HUBBARD V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 3

manner restriction and is presumptively unconstitutional. The ordinance failed strict scrutiny because the City demonstrated no plausible connection between plaintiffs teaching yoga and any threat to public safety and enjoyment in the City’s shoreline parks. Applying the remaining factors for preliminary injunctive relief, the panel held that plaintiffs demonstrated that they were likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tipped in their favor, and that an injunction was in the public interest. Because the record was underdeveloped with respect to plaintiffs’ facial challenge to the City’s prohibition, the panel did not address that aspect of their claim.

COUNSEL Bryan W. Pease (argued) and Parisa Ijadi-Maghsoodi, Pease Law APC, San Diego, California, for Plaintiffs-Appellants. Manuel Arambula (argued), Deputy City Attorney; Mara W. Elliot, City Attorney; San Diego Office of the City Attorney, San Diego, California; for Defendants-Appellees. 4 HUBBARD V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

OPINION

H.A. THOMAS, Circuit Judge:

The City of San Diego prohibits teaching yoga to four or more persons at any of the City’s shoreline parks or beaches. Steven Hubbard and Amy Baack, two yoga teachers who offer free classes in shoreline parks, challenge the City’s prohibition against teaching y