In a case of first impression within the Sixth Circuit, a district court held that a city’s interest in protecting the exercise of a permit holder’s First Amendment rights is—at least in some circumstances—a significant interest supporting the content-neutral regulation of speech.

In 2018, Johnson City, Tennessee granted a Special Events Permit to LGBTQ organization TriPride to hold a parade and festival in a city park. At the festival, city officers enforcing the Special Events Policy moved religious protesters from blocking the park’s entrance. The protesters filed suit, claiming that this allegedly arbitrary enforcement violated their rights to free speech and free exercise of religion.Continue Reading District Court Upholds Tennessee City’s Enforcement of Policy Against Special Event Interference

Earlier this month, the court held that the City of Norman, Oklahoma may enforce a disturbing-the-peace ordinance against anti-abortion protesters while their litigation claiming it violates the First Amendment is pending.  The ordinance prohibits “disturb[ing] the peace of another . . . by [p]laying or creating loud or unusual sounds.”  City police had cited and threatened to cite the protesters for violation when their amplified speech on sidewalks outside an abortion clinic could be heard inside the clinic.  The protesters claimed that the ordinance violates their rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, facially and as applied, but the district court denied their request for a preliminary injunction.
Continue Reading Tenth Circuit Upholds Denial of Preliminary Injunction Against Enforcement of Disturbing-the-Peace Ordinance

One of the signs at issue in the case. Source: Riverfront Times.

In a case that we reported on around this time last year, late last month, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal district court’s ruling denying a motion for preliminary injunction against Bel-Nor, Missouri’s “one sign” rule.  The Eighth Circuit’s ruling means that the city will be temporary enjoined from enforcing the law.

The facts of the case are discussed in our earlier post.

The court of appeals had no problem finding that the city’s sign regulation violated the First Amendment.  The law allows just one freestanding yard sign, as well as one flag.  The definition of “flag” in the city’s code indicates that the object must be a “symbol of a government or institution,” thus drawing a distinction based on the message a speaker conveys.  Applying the Supreme Court’s holding in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, the court found the regulation was content based.  The court then found that the code was not narrowly tailored so as to pass muster under strict scrutiny.
Continue Reading Appeals Court Reverses Order Upholding Missouri Enclave’s One-Sign Rule

Photo by Peter Kaminski, used pursuant to Creative Commons 2.0 license.

Fewer than six months after it was enacted as an “emergency” measure, a Cincinnati ordinance singling out billboards for special taxes has succumbed to a constitutional challenge. The ordinance, which met legal headwinds from the start, transparently aimed to make life miserable for the city’s billboard operators and consisted of two primary components: (1) a special tax on revenues from billboard advertising and (2) a hush provision preventing those operators from telling advertisers about the tax.  An Ohio judge wasted little time in finding both provisions unconstitutional and
Continue Reading Cincinnati “Billboard Tax” Found Unconstitutional Just Months After Enactment

Under Lexington’s ordinance, newspapers cannot be delivered to residential driveways. Image source: CBS San Francisco.

In a case that we previously reported on last winter, a federal district court in Kentucky ruled last month that Lexington’s law restricting the locations where newspapers may be delivered meets intermediate scrutiny under the First Amendment.  Lexington’s ordinance requires that newspapers be delivered on porches, attached to doors, placed in mail slots, left in distribution boxes, or personally delivered.

The facts of the case can be found in our January 2018 post on the case of Lexington H-L Services, Inc. v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.  After the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s entry of a preliminary injunction in the case, the parties proceeded to summary judgment briefing on the understanding that there were no genuine disputes as to material fact.

In ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment, the court first found that the restriction on the locations where newspaper can be delivered is content neutral:  the regulation is not dependent upon the content of the newspaper, but simply identifies the locations on private property where a newspaper may be delivered.  Moreover, the court observed that the city’s goals in reducing litter, visual blight, and public safety were content neutral in purpose.  The court went on to find that the restrictions on delivery were narrowly tailored to these goals.
Continue Reading On Summary Judgment, District Court Upholds Lexington Newspaper-Distribution Law

The Ocean City boardwalk. Source: Bill Price III, from Wikimedia Commons.

This post was authored by Otten Johnson summer associate Chelsea Marx.  Chelsea is a rising third-year law student at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Just in time for summer, the federal district court in Maryland has determined that the show must go on for a group of performance artists challenging an ordinance restricting public performance on the Ocean City boardwalk.  In Christ v. Ocean City, which we first reported on last year, a federal district judge concluded that Chapter 62, a new ordinance limiting performance to designated spaces at designated times, was mostly unconstitutional.

The Ocean City Boardwalk Task Force hoped Chapter 62 would survive scrutiny after a lengthy history of successful First Amendment challenges to prior regulations of speech on the boardwalk.  The Mayor and City Council charged the five-member Boardwalk Task Force to draft a new ordinance addressing the “issues that had plagued the Boardwalk” with respect to public safety, traffic congestion, and managing competing uses for limited space.  A cast of eleven street performers, including a puppeteer, stick balloon artist, magician, mime, portrait sketch artist, and musician, filed suit asserting that Chapter 62 violated the First Amendment.

Further background and details of the ordinance are detailed in our earlier post.
Continue Reading A Mime, A Stick Balloon Artist, A Puppeteer, and Others Win in Ocean City Boardwalk Regulation Case

A Hustler Hollywood store in Fresno, California. Source: KSFN.

Last month, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s denial of an adult business’s motion for preliminary injunction against Indianapolis.  The appeals court found that the business, Hustler Hollywood (HH), was unlikely to prevail on the merits of its

Earlier this month, the Sixth Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction preventing Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (the “City”) from enforcing Ordinance 25/2017 (the “Ordinance”), which would regulate where unsolicited written materials may be delivered. Here is what you need to know about the procedural posture of the case:  The Ordinance would allow delivery of unsolicited written materials in six specific locations around a person’s residence or business but would prohibit driveway delivery.  Plaintiff, Lexington H-L Services, Inc., d/b/a Lexington Herald-Leader, delivers The Community News free of charge to more than 100,000 households per week via driveway delivery.  In their motion for a preliminary injunction, Plaintiff claimed that the Ordinance would make their publication financially unfeasible and that it would violate the First Amendment if allowed to go into effect.  The lower court, after applying strict scrutiny analysis to the Ordinance, granted Plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction, finding Plaintiff was likely to succeed on the merits of its First Amendment claim.  The City timely appealed to the Sixth Circuit.
Continue Reading Prohibition on Driveway Delivery of Unsolicited Materials Survives Intermediate Scrutiny of Sixth Circuit

Sam Shaw and one of his signs. Source: Indiana Public Media.

Last week, a federal district court in Indiana ruled that the enforcement of the City of Bedford’s sign ordinance would not be enjoined, finding that the sign code was content neutral, supported by a significant governmental interest, and narrowly tailored.  The court’s denial of the preliminary injunction indicates that the ordinance is likely to survive constitutional scrutiny.
Continue Reading Indiana Town’s Sign Ordinance Withstands Motion for Preliminary Injunction

A tattered campaign sign on a D.C. lamppost. Source: Washington Times.

Yesterday, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit determined that Washington, D.C.’s regulation of event-based signage on public lampposts is not content based.  On its face, the court’s decision appears to conflict with one of the central holdings of the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert.  But the lengthy, well-written opinion made significant efforts to distinguish the case from Reed, and the D.C. Circuit’s decision potentially offers new avenues for local governments to control proliferations of signage.

Washington, D.C. has long regulated signage on public lampposts.
Continue Reading In Apparent Departure From Reed, D.C. Circuit Says Event-Related Sign Restrictions Are Not Content-Based