welcome for the personal nightmare of non o modern auto for the last ten years he's been in an ongoing battle with the department of caltrans about what he can and cannot display on his freeway billboard when i first met nonno one of the first things he said to me was i thought this was america i thought you could say whatever you want as long as it's true i thought the government couldn't tell you what to say mr nonono not i was here today with his  he's a lot calmer here in federal court than he was and has been the last few times in state court because the last few times in state court he's been summoned formally summoned and threatened with jail and fines failure to challenge the constitutionality of the caltrans regulations scheme during previous prosecutions concerning prior advertisement bars him from challenging the constitutionality of the regulation constitution as to each new things that and that accepting censorship in a few instances does not forfeit all right to challenge the censorship in all future cases the freedom of speech and of the press is much too press officers and those in the state tribunals and it's officers are actually named as plaintiffs in the federal court here that's not the case that this litigation is between private parties secondly feltman is not a political because the issues were never actually litigated in any state court proceeding for one thing in the state court proceeding involved different advertising for another thing no constitutional issues were ever raised in the state court proceeding the third reason rucker feldman is not flexible is that it's never a political to general federal constitutional challenges for the as applied challenges are not in expected inexplicably intertwined with any prior state court adjudication because the district court is not being asked to determine whether any constitutionality of a statute and in court when other similarly situated property owners could do so and be freed of the regulation that's as to general constitutional challenges now as to the as applied constitutional challenge is i think even the district court in this case recognized that those could not have been brought in the prior state court proceedings because they that the messages weren't yet display and he had no intention of displaying those messages that at the time of the prior proceeding if you're playing the enforcement procedures well that carry that question on to the ones for that if you look at it not in terms of specific types of messages are you masochist i believe my client if you displayed a commercial mass which way under california law i have the right to challenge the constitutionality of the statute and the injunction read of prohibition and what's happened here is instead of challenging contempt proceedings i read a prohibition in the california courts and under california law that's all over you who are asked the question is when you lost there did you also lose a potential or possible constitutional challenge as applied statute bars any advertisement commercial noncommercial off premises and so that doesn't sound like content to me but then you say there are so many exceptions that it becomes the content regulation point is that there's been further case law by disc u s supreme court and when it's possible to have a statute that is both under inclusive and over inclusive  is i don't know the difference between a noncommercial and commercial advertisement the court hasn't described it that the payment of renumeration shakespeare was paid renumeration for his works does that make his artistic his plays a commercial or noncommercial i don't know that and justice brennan and justice stevens have made no the the problem with defining noncommercial in commercial the california supreme court and from the metro media case refused to even get into that issue they said it was posed constitutional problems and that and they just struck down the good morning well yes the my first counter is welcome to the states you know repeated attempts to have a lawful injunction in forced by the state courts the state of california i will remind you that the actual messages the actual signs for holidaying in stanford in july all shops and stores and activities that were occurring off premises ok were simply the evidence in the trial the complaint was general notice pleading that  there's not a pure political speech if mr maldonado wants to put a sign up on his thing that says i love george bush i support the war i'm against the war the california  jurisdiction under the injunction over that activity that's purely political speech surely political speech so i think it's a it's been the court has been misled that this is a case about content the two prior department is actually apply it ok when when our folks come to us and say there's an ad up here to them there's a statement up here about the war and it's on a large billboard and they asked for my legal advice i tell them we have no jurisdiction over that even  noncommercial thing is constitutionally committed and that's a fairly different subject from what you say you're interested in but that's a general constitutional challenge he has no standing and that's the third i want to put very favoring your habitat favoring charities and that's exactly what the district court addressed in the new messages the new messages were not subject to a contempt order they were the quote new messages correct there's it's not right there's no issue there's no issue that he's being punished for any political speech here and what the court  perfectly capable of addressing that issue of whether that injunction applies to could apply to political speech and he has his remedy ok it's not right before this court and that's why that goes that aspect of the case was dismissed on rightness grounds is not any you have proceeding currently going on in state court there is no proceeding currently going on in state court right now your honor we've been waiting for the outcome of this case to there's nothing speech let's put it that way are political speech he's an absolute right to political speech right now if you i don't think we ought to because there are other issues that i would like to address here ok in my limited time if you would like to allow me to ok i believe the state court is perfectly capable addressing the issues that are way that he that are raised if in fact the state attempts to seek a contempt order for what is otherwise a political speech it can rule that the stations between off and on premises are irrational ok and it declares the entire statute unconstitutional guess what the next time mr maldonado puts up a furiously her mercial advertisement for the holiday inn shopping center he will bring that federal court district court judgment into court to block the enforcement  void and this is the cross over to the related to the cross for the necessary compulsory counterclaim here that nine hundred eighty three claim that now brings before you should have been raised before because today you could bring it against its director and that's what i'm asking about it would he have had parties well at parties from the original lawsuit as well i think making this fine distinction between the state of california what it's still a still a related counterclaim he just simply asked the directors name i don't think that's the that's a critical distinction here i think under the compulsory counterclaim that's what he had to do he had to file a compulsory counterclaim because it was the same trends a series of argued that the stack should be told until all state court remedies have been exhausted they were all exhausted as of march twenty eighth two thousand and one when the titian for review before the california supreme court  say now those were not at issue in the state conceding cannot he bring in a challenge to the statute in respect to these that injury if it were told at all ended on march twenty eighth two thousand and one at that point the one year statue imitation in california code civil procedure three forty was applicable for personal injury paladin said no it's two years unfortunately for him the two years the actual imitations didn't come into effect it was a new law didn't come effect until january one two thousand and three and there's a case below in the central district that basically new quote in his view type of advertising not one word not two words but a tight no longer commercial it's charitable political whatever it is ok he says that happened to three days or something before the federal complaint so judge fletcher has asked but has the isn't it true that the statute of limitation has not run as to that billboard that advertising so what th tell friends ok this is challenge is not there's nothing right there's no one traversing right is he permitted to simply it's his right to now challenge a lawful judgment where the statute of limitations because the the declaratory relief they're here that's a hypothetical it's not before the court in this case he's not asking for what you claim he's asking court he specifically says if you would just please read the complaint set aside this injunction as it applies to come mercial advertising i want to put up signs for holiday yeah that's what this is about ok to allow him to just set aside this injunction of political speech either one of them they were clearly your only off site commercial advertising it is an end run into roofs ok to swing and to attack please i would ask the court to take a look at the agreement that says those are ok and then he when you hand that in to the court there's nothing before the court that says right now that he's asking us for whether if he wants a letter from us that says purely there can be and there is a real dispute as to what is political speech and what is advertising and clearly the state court is in the best position to judical think that if you can different answer the question is is there a in commercial advertising not the political messages ok they are the political message here is stop world terrorism we don't have a problem with that there are phone numbers commercial numbers on their face yes you emphasize that my client has no way of knowing what by reading the statutes what is permitted and what is not permitted and therefore there  live controversy here he is chilled from putting up advertisements because he's afraid caltrans is going to bring him into court and try to put him in jail now justice fletcher asked whether any state court proceedings are presently ongoing the answer is no but last february after the district court dismissed and after notice of appeal was given to th  court there was a state court proceeding in this mr wang gardner who today says political futilely political speech is ok last february was in state court arguing that the very messages mateo ruled that the habitat for humanity display violated the act he ruled that the the other message did not violate to challenge the constitutionality of the injunction and that order however because this federal court proceeding was already filed and because i i had picked the former federal court to have these question what's that did you try i tried what did you do i filed a trial brief i attempted darg us and he said now you'll have to use an extraordinary read if you want that issue decided what happened with the state of california tried to do an end run around the federal court jurisdiction and have these issues adjudicated first it's really rather remarkable file there is an ongoing dispute so this is just another instance of messages my client currently wants to display giovanni talking gino owner of palermo restaurant located at four fifty two he was threatened with jail and fines another message my client wants to display but he's afraid to display it is rotary international service above self support your local rotary club  fifty one fifty dot org now he wants to take compensation for this message but he's afraid that that would violate the statutes and the injunction because it might be construed as commercial now that's a different than the habitat for humanity and it raises different issues but it's so important another issue my client wants to put out there support the san francisco giants a great baseball team  leave to amend that complaint to sept force the messages i've talked about today because there's an actual controversy about whether those messages w a purely political speech i think under the statutes itself you asked about george bush i think george bush would have to be living in the warehouse underneath the billboard in order for it to qualify as  speech under the statutes because that's the only way it would be on and i have one other point with respect to the the issue that compulsory cross complaint statute california courts say that statute should be narrowly construed that's the date  the court one any information on the intervening state court proceeding ok thank you thank you