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The 4th District Court of Appeals ruled that business owner Roger Charly was free to revoke an offer for activists who run the Primate Freedom Project to purchase his property and dismissed the breach of contract lawsuit against him.
The decision overturns a November 2006 lower court ruling ordering Charly to sell the property for $675,000 to Richard McLellan, a retired California doctor who wanted to bankroll a National Primate Research Center Exhibition Hall.
Charly instead wants to sell the property to the UW-Madison for $1 million.
Charly’s attorney, Allen Arntsen, said the deal with the university is on hold pending the outcome of the lawsuit. McLellan has 30 days to decide whether to appeal the latest ruling.
Rick Bogle, founder of the Primate Freedom Project, said he was disappointed but had not decided yet whether to appeal the ruling. Fundraising for the museum has been on hold during the lawsuit, he said.
The property is located between the Harlow Primate Psychology Laboratory and the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, one of eight federally funded labs.
There is no other property in the world situated between two primate labs so considering a new location is difficult, Bogle said.
“It’s something that we’ve talked about but part of the reason this idea has as much power as it does is because of its unique location,” Bogle said.
The planned museum, in the works for four years, was to feature graphic depictions of what organizers consider the cruelty of research on animals.
McLellan and the Primate Freedom Project filed the lawsuit to force the sale after Charly tried to back out of the deal by claiming the contract wasn’t valid.
The university’s real estate arm offered Charly $1 million for the land after learning of the proposed sale to activists, who university officials feared would harass researchers experimenting on primates as they search for cures to human ailments such as AIDS and Parkinson’s disease.
