'Christmas Lawyer' files for Supreme Court review in battle with HOA over holiday light show
Jeremy Morris says his case is an important test for religious freedom and property rights, while the HOA's attorney says the 'isolated dispute' doesn't merit SCOTUS attention
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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)
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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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"[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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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)
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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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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)
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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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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.