An animal rights group, along with a wild horse and burro sanctuary and three individual activists unsuccessfully tried to head off the August 2010 roundup in Lassen County and Nevada's Washoe County. U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. and later a federal appellate court refused the plaintiffs' request to step in and temporarily block the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from proceeding with the roundup until the matter could be decided on the merits.
On Thursday, England ended the lawsuit, at least at the trial court level, with a 36-page order granting the BLM's motion for a summary judgment in its favor.