Whitefish residents will have a rare opportunity to hear oral arguments in the “doughnut” lawsuit when the Montana Supreme Court holds a session on Friday at the University of Montana in Missoula.

The high court has been tasked with sorting out a long-running legal dispute over which local government entity — the city of Whitefish or Flathead County — should have the ability to make land-use decisions in the two-mile area around Whitefish that’s known as the doughnut.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments at 9:30 a.m. Friday, April 11, in the George and Jane Dennison Theatre on the Missoula campus. An introduction to the case will precede the arguments. Oral arguments will be 40 minutes for both the appellants and appellees.

The UM School of Law is hosting the session, which is free and open to the public.

The Supreme Court generally chooses a case every year to be heard publicly, often in Missoula where law-school students can observe.

“It’s up to the [Supreme] Court to determine what cases they feel are important enough” to present in a public format, Clerk of the Montana Supreme Court Ed Smith said. “Either they’re trying to extrapolate more information or they see something interesting.”

Occasionally an attorney will request that oral arguments be heard in a public format, Smith said.

A search of doughnut lawsuit court documents posted on the Supreme Court website didn’t indicate an attorney had requested the public oral arguments in this case.

Former Supreme Court Justice Terry Trieweiler and Whitefish City Attorney Mary Van Buskirk are listed in court documents as attorneys for the city of Whitefish. Missoula attorney Alan McCormick represents Flathead County and Kalispell attorney John Lacey represents the intervenors in the case.

Kalispell attorney Duncan Scott, who represents plaintiffs Turner Askew, Anne Dee Reno, Lyle Phillips and Ben Whitten, said he believes the lawsuit is “an interesting issue for a Missoula audience to witness.

“The issue of whether legal settlements can be overturned by referendum has ramifications statewide,” Scott said.

Attorneys for all four parties are expected to present oral arguments.

The city and county tried for years to come to a mutual agreement over governance of the doughnut, but to no avail.

A major rift between the two governing bodies occurred when the county abruptly rescinded the interlocal agreement in 2008 in response to what it deemed heavy-handed legislation without representation in the doughnut area.

That began a flurry of litigation that continues today.

The city sued the county and later appealed an adverse District Court ruling to the Montana Supreme Court. The high court sent the doughnut lawsuit back to District Court, saying the lower court “put the cart before the horse.”

By December 2010 the two sides agreed on a revised interlocal agreement, acknowledging it wasn’t a perfect document but “a good start on the road to recovery.”

The road to recovery headed off a cliff a year later, though, when city residents passed a referendum to throw out the revised agreement in an effort to resume city control of the doughnut.

Shortly after the city decided to go ahead with the referendum, the county gave Whitefish a one-year termination notice for the interlocal agreement that had been a compromise for both sides.

Another round of lawsuits followed, with the four above-named Whitefish-area residents suing the city over the validity of a referendum passed by city residents that affected non-city doughnut residents.

Whitefish counter-sued, claiming the referendum was legal.

In July 2013 Flathead District Judge David Ortley issued a ruling allowing the county to put county zoning regulations in place in the two-mile doughnut, but by December the state Supreme Court granted the city’s motion for a stay of Ortley’s ruling.

The high court order allows the county to conduct land-use planning in the doughnut but restricts final adoption of county zoning for the two-mile area until the high court has ruled in the case.

Along the way, four organizers of the referendum joined the lawsuit as intervenors. They are Dan Weinberg, Ed McGrew, Mary Person and Marilyn Nelson.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.