WASHINGTON — A federal lawsuit aimed at halting the upcoming UFC Freedom 250 at the White House has failed, as a judge has denied a petition to hit the event with a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction.
Less than a week after the Public Integrity Project filed the complaint on behalf of two Virginia residents, U.S. District Court judge Amit Mehta said Friday afternoon that the plaintiffs failed to show a specific potential of irreparable harm.
“Concluding the plaintiffs have not satisfied their burden as to these elements, the court does not reach the merits,” wrote Mehta, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in his ruling. “An injury in fact cannot be conjectural—it must be ‘definable and discernible.’”
The plaintiffs had alleged that the National Park Service, which oversees the public grounds at the White House, and the U.S. Department of Interior that oversees the NPS violated strict regulations when allowing UFC Freedom 250 to happen, failed to secure Congressional approval for the event, and did not secure a required environmental review.
The U.S. Department of Justice, responding on behalf of the sister federal agencies, said earlier this week that “a more starkly mismatched balance of harms would be difficult to conceive.”
The Money Matters
To that end, Mehta directly noted the $60 million that UFC has spent to produce the event as he sided with the government.
“The potential loss of those dollars resulting from a last-minute, court-ordered stoppage cannot be ignored,” Mehta wrote.
On Thursday, Mehta said that he would not be holding a hearing on the petition, and would instead rule based on the written briefs.
The Public Integrity Project did not immediately respond to the ruling on Friday afternoon.
UFC Freedom 250, a spectacle unlike anything in the history of mixed-martial arts promotion, is now fully on track to happen on Sunday night. UFC and its parent company, TKO Group Holdings, were not parties to the lawsuit. That $60 million in production expenses includes the development of “The Claw,” the 92-foot apparatus directly adjacent to the White House and hanging over the octagon.
