A popular spring car show in Cumberland County was allowed to have crowds of up to 20,000 people under a confidential settlement agreement organizers reached with the state Department of Health.

The event in June was held at the 82-acre Carlisle Fairgrounds, despite Gov. Tom Wolf's coronavirus reopening plan that limited gatherings to 250 people.

Lawyers for Wolf and state Heath Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine on Tuesday turned over the three-page document to rival attorneys in a Butler County-led federal lawsuit challenging the governor's executive orders intended to slow the spread of COVID-19.

The agreement, Tom King, one of those attorneys, said Tuesday, “is evidence of discriminatory treatment as between the counties, discriminatory treatment from one business to another and discriminatory treatment as between commercial activities and political activities.”

The federal suit claims Wolf's business shutdown and stay-at-home orders violated certain constitutional rights of his clients.

The plaintiffs include Butler, Fayette, Greene and Washington counties, four Republican lawmakers and several small businesses in those counties.

The state attorney's office argues that the governor's orders were appropriate, citing Pennsylvania's emergency management law that grants him broad powers to deal with a health crisis or disaster.

On Friday, King, of the firm Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham in Butler, filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV to order the settlement agreement be produced.

In his motion, he also noted that he had filed a Right-to-Know request with the governor's office and Health Department for a copy of the settlement.

King said he obtained the agreement from his Right-to-Know request.

“Carlisle Events shall limit total attendance at (the show) to no more than 20,000 individuals, which is 50 percent of its capacity,” the agreement said.

The settlement came after the Health Department on June 17 sought an injunction in Commonwealth Court to force Carlisle Events to comply with the limit of 250 people as part of the state's ongoing reopening plan.

The Health Department went to court after Carlisle Events, saying it was in compliance with the state's COVID-19 restrictions, announced it was moving forward on holding the event.

The legal dispute was subsequently resolved and the settlement reached that allowed the car show to be held.

“We are pleased to have worked with Carlisle Events to improve its efforts to protect Spring Carlisle vendors and patrons and the public from COVID-19,” the Health Department said in a statement immediately following the settlement.

Terms of the agreement, however, were never divulged — until Tuesday.

Carlisle Events spokesman Mike Garland declined Tuesday to comment about the agreement, and referred questions to the organization's attorneys, who did not immediately return a telephone call.

He also would not disclose the attendance figures for this year's Spring Carlisle car show.

The event is normally held over five days in April, Garland said. But this year it was delayed due to the pandemic. It was also shortened, he noted, because June 21, a Sunday, fell on Father's Day.

“Historically, over five days the event attracts more than 100,000 people,” Garland said. “We were nowhere close to that this year.”

The attendance was down, in part, in light of the pandemic because the event had been rescheduled twice and due to the litigation.

Stickman, meanwhile, agreed Monday to take “judicial notice,” or accept as evidence, of the complaint and docket in the Commonwealth Court case that initially sought to shut down the car show.

King hailed the decision that came in response to his Aug. 12 motion.

He argued the complaint and the docket, which showed the Health Department's suit was eventually withdrawn, helps make the case that his clients received unfair treatment under Wolf's orders.

“It proves,” he said, “that (the state) discriminated as to political speech and commercial speech.”

The federal suit claims the governor and Levine violated certain constitutional rights of the plaintiffs, among whom are small business owners and U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th, and state Rep. Marci Mustello, R-11th.

The governor's business closure and stay-at-home orders, specifically, violated the U.S. Constitution's equal protection rights, in part, since some businesses were allowed to remain open or could reopen sooner than others, the suit contends.

Free speech also was infringed, according to the suit, because Wolf's orders curtailed or limited the rights of lawmakers to hold campaign rallies or fundraisers.

King last week filed both motions related to the car show following a July declaratory judgment hearing held over two days.

“They let these people have a car show, but they wouldn't let Marci Mustello or Mike Kelly have 251 people outside,” he said, “and wouldn't let President Trump come to Gettysburg and have more than 250 people.”

The reference to Trump was made in the wake of Wolf's response earlier this month to the possibility of the president coming to the Gettysburg National Military Park to deliver his formal nomination as the Republican presidential candidate Aug. 27.

The governor made it known that in that event, the outdoor crowd could be no more than 250 — the state-imposed limit because of COVID-19.

Getting the car show case on the record in the federal case was also important, King said, because it showed that the state violated his clients' equal protection rights.

“We canceled all these things — the Butler County Fair and the Farm Show, the Saxonburg Carnival — and they let these people have a car show in Carlisle for four days,” he said.

“Plus, they're still doing stuff down there (at the Carlisle Fairgrounds) under an agreement in court that lets them bring (thousands) of people a day.”

A telephone call to the state attorney general's office seeking comment about Tuesday's release of the settlement agreement and Stickman's decision Monday was not returned Tuesday.