Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-09-55792/USCOURTS-ca9-09-55792-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

WORLD WIDE RUSH, LLC, a 

Pennsylvania limited liability

company; INSITE OUTDOOR WORKS Nos. 08-56454,

LA, LLC, a Delaware limited 08-56523,

liability company, 09-55494

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

D.C. No.

v. 2:07-cv-00238-

C ABC-JWJ ITY OF LOS ANGELES, a California

municipal corporation,

Defendant-Appellant. 

SKY TAG, INC., a California 

corporation; SKY TAG WEST, INC.,

a California corporation; SUNSET &

VINE, INC., a California

corporation; WEST HOLLYWOOD

INC., a California corporation; SKY

No. 09-55792 CREATIVE SERVICES, INC., a

California corporation; SKY D.C. No.  POSTERS INC., a California 2:08-cv-05434-

corporation, ABC-JWJ

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

CITY OF LOS ANGELES, a California

Charter city,

Defendant-Appellant. 

7577

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WILSHIRE CENTER, LLC, a 

Delaware limited liability

company; JAMISON 1055 WILSHIRE,

LLC, a California limited liability

company; WILMONT, LLC, a

Delaware limited liability

company; EQUITABLE PLAZA, LLC,

a California limited liability

company; 3545 WILSHIRE, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; METROPLEX, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; 3600 WILSHIRE, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; 3699 WILSHIRE, LLC, a 

California limited liability

company; 4041 WILSHIRE, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; 4055 WILSHIRE, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; 4201 WILSHIRE, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; JAMISON 5455 WILSHIRE,

LLC, a California limited liability

company; WEST WILSHIRE MEDICAL

CENTER, LLC, a California limited

liability company; 9800 LA

CIENEGA, LLC, a California limited

liability company; 

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FAIRFAX BUSINESS CENTER, LLC, a 

California limited liability

company; 7080 HOLLYWOOD, LLC,

a Delaware limited liability

company; 700 FLOWER PLAZA,

LLC, a California limited liability

company company; 4929

WILSHIRE, LP, a Delaware limited

partnership; 3575 CAHUENGA, LLC,

a California limited liability

company; 1900 WESTWOOD, LLC,

a California limited liability; 933

N. LA BREA, LLC, a Delaware

limited liability company; ROYAL

BEVERLY GLEN PLAZA, LLC, a

California limited liability  company; 1055 SEVENTH, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; 6380 WILSHIRE, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; 11620 WILSHIRE, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; 3875 WILSHIRE, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; 16501 VENTURA, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; 17000 VENTURA, LLC, a

California limited liability

company; 22801 VENTURA, LLC, a

California limited liability

company,

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

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 No. 09-55791

v. D.C. No.  2:08-cv-04762- CITY OF LOS ANGELES, a California

ABC-JWJ Charter city,

Defendant-Appellant. OPINION 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Audrey B. Collins, Chief District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

December 10, 2009—Pasadena, California

Filed May 26, 2010

Before: Stephen Reinhardt, Stephen S. Trott and

Kim McLane Wardlaw, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Wardlaw

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COUNSEL

Carmen A. Trutanich, Rockard J. Delgadillo, Jeri L. Burge,

Kenneth T. Fong, Tayo A. Popoola, and Michael J. Bostrom

of the Office of the City Attorney (Los Angeles, California)

for defendant-appellant City of Los Angeles.

Rex S. Heinke, Michael C. Small, L. Rachel Helyar, Maria

Ellinikos, and Christopher Blanchard of Akin, Gump, Strauss,

Hauer & Feld, LLP (Los Angeles, California) and Paul E.

Fisher of the Law Offices of Paul E. Fisher (Newport Beach,

C California) for plaintiffs-appellees World Wide Rush, LLC,

et al.

Gary S. Mobley of Case, Knowlson & Jordan, LLP (Newport

Beach, California) for plaintiffs-appellees Sky Tag, Inc., et al.

Philip R. Recht and Andrew T. Kugler of Mayer Brown, LLP

(Los Angeles, California) for amicus curiae Community

Redevelopment Association, LLC.

Michael Jenkins and Gregg Kovacevich of Jenkins & Hogin,

LLP (Manhattan Beach, California) for amicus curiae League

of California Cities.

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Luis Li, Allison B. Stein, and Jenny M. Jiang of Munger, Tolles & Olson, LLP (Los Angeles, California) for amicus curiae

Van Wagner Communications.

OPINION

WARDLAW, Circuit Judge:

The City of Los Angeles (“City”) appeals the grant of summary judgment in favor of World Wide Rush and Insite Outdoor Works LA (collectively “WWR”) and the entry of

injunctions in favor of WWR and Wilshire Center, Jamison,

and Sky Tag (collectively “Sky Tag”) enjoining enforcement

of certain billboard regulations. We must decide whether the

district court erred in concluding that (1) the City’s Freeway

Facing Sign Ban is an unconstitutionally underinclusive

restriction on commercial speech and (2) the City’s Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans are unconstitutional prior

restraints on speech. Because the City’s exceptions to the

Freeway Facing Sign Ban do not undermine the City’s

asserted interests in enacting the Ban, and because the City

Council’s authority to create exceptions to the Supergraphic

and Off-Site Sign Bans is a permissible aspect of its inherent

legislative discretion, we reverse. 

The City also appeals the district court’s order finding it in

civil contempt of the injunction against enforcement of the

Freeway Facing Sign Ban and the Supergraphic and Off-Site

Sign Bans as to WWR’s billboards. Because we vacate the

injunction, we also reverse the contempt order. 

Finally, we affirm the district court’s decision to allow just

one round of amendments to the pleadings as a proper exercise of its discretion.

BACKGROUND

“The story of billboards in America is . . . characterized by

an ongoing struggle between an expanding industry and a

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resistant public.” David Burnett, Note, Judging the Aesthetics

of Billboards, 23 J.L. & Pol. 171, 174 (2007). One of the first

chapters in this story played out in Saint Louis in 1911, when

the Missouri Supreme Court was called upon to decide

whether cities had the power to regulate billboards at all. See

St. Louis Gunning Adver. Co. v. City of St. Louis, 137 S.W.

929, 941 (Mo. 1911). At that time, billboards were “temporary affairs” constructed from “upright timbers, or posts set in

the ground” and “braced from the rear, with stringers running

from one to the other.” Id. at 941-42. They were described as

“inartistic” and “unsightly” monstrosities that were “liable to

be blown down and to fall upon and injure those who may

happen to be in their vicinity.” Id. It was even said that they

were “hiding places and retreats for criminals and all classes

of miscreants.” Id. The Missouri Supreme Court had little

trouble concluding that “this class of advertising as now conducted” was “subject to control and regulation by the police

power of the state.” Id. at 942. 

Of course, not everyone shared this view. One author

described billboards of that era as “thing[s] of beauty” that

bore “work of artistic and pleasing character, framed in a

structure of tasteful design.” Frank Presbrey, The History and

Development of Advertising 503-04 (1929). Decades later, in

an essay detailing the history of outdoor advertising, the President of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America

described billboards as “an important business tool” and

emphasized that their “influence reaches the people in every

city and town without getting in their way.” Phillip Tocker,

Standardized Outdoor Advertising: A History, Economics and

Self-Regulation, in Outdoor Advertising: History and Regulation 56 (1969). He even argued that billboards “assisted communities . . . in beautifying areas.” Id. at 53. “All that [the

billboard industry] asks in return,” he pleaded, “is to continue

to do business where others do business, under the same freedoms and limitations.” Id. at 56. 

These appeals present the latest chapter in “the story of billboards.” No longer tied to wooden posts protruding from

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holes in the ground, in modern-day cities such as Los Angeles, today’s billboards may be projected onto or hung from the

sides of skyscrapers or strategically located near main traffic

arteries so that they are visible from great distances by masses

of would-be consumers. Their labels alone (e.g., “supergraphic signs”) conjure up a setting far removed from Saint

Louis in the early 1900s. As the nature of billboards has

changed, so too has the nature of the legal problems they present. The question of the day is no longer whether cities may

regulate billboards at all, but is instead the extent to which

they may do so consistent with the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of expression.

I. The City’s Sign Regulations

The City regulates signs, including billboards, through

Chapter I, Article 4.4 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code

(“LAMC”). Article 4.4’s stated purpose is to “promote public

safety and welfare” by “provid[ing] reasonable protection to

the visual environment” and by ensuring that billboards do

not “interfere with traffic safety or otherwise endanger public

safety.” LAMC § 14.4.1. Article 4.4 prohibits some types of

billboards and restricts the size, placement, and illumination

of others. These appeals arise from First Amendment challenges to certain content-neutral provisions of Article 4.4: the

“Freeway Facing Sign Ban” and the “Supergraphic and OffSite Sign Bans.”

A. Freeway Facing Sign Ban

Article 4.4’s Freeway Facing Sign Ban prohibits billboards

located within 2,000 feet of and “viewed primarily from” a

freeway or an on-ramp/off-ramp. LAMC § 14.4.6(A). Notwithstanding the Freeway Facing Sign Ban, the City has permitted freeway-facing billboards in some circumstances, two

of which are applicable here.1 First, in 1999, the City adopted

1

In proceedings before the district court, WWR identified three other

freeway-facing billboards to support its challenge to the Freeway Facing

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an ordinance authorizing billboards near the Staples Center, a

state-of-the-art sports and entertainment complex that was

developed to eliminate blight and dangerous conditions in

downtown Los Angeles. See Los Angeles, Cal., Ordinance

No. 172465 (1999). The City asserted that the nature of the

Staples Center’s use, coupled with its location in the center of

a highly urbanized area, required billboards that could effectively communicate event-related information. Id. Today,

there are several freeway facing billboards near the Staples

Center, including some that use flashing displays and frequently changing digital content. 

The City made another exception to the Freeway Facing

Sign Ban in 2008, when it undertook plans to renovate Santa

Monica Boulevard with the aim of improving the flow of traffic between the 405 Freeway and the Beverly Hills border.

See Los Angeles, Cal., Ordinance No. 179827 (2008). However, the targeted traffic corridor was home to sixteen billboards, the outright elimination of which might have triggered

the City’s obligation to compensate the billboards’ owners

under California’s eminent domain law. See Cal. Bus. & Prof.

Code § 5412. To avoid the requirements of takings law,

including the obligation of just compensation, the City agreed

with the billboard owners that four sign faces could be relocated to a newly created special use district (“SUD”) near FifSign Ban. On appeal, however, WWR fails to discuss two of those billboards and thus waives its argument that they undermine the Freeway Facing Sign Ban. See James River Ins. Co. v. Hebert Schenk, P.C., 523 F.3d

915, 920 n.1 (9th Cir. 2008) (waiver of arguments not adequately presented in briefs). A third freeway-facing set of signs depicts members of

the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. WWR concedes that consideration

of these signs is unnecessary to resolution of its constitutional claim and

explains that the parties’ real quarrel over these signs is whether they are

subject to the LAMC at all. The district court did not resolve this issue,

and it is not properly presented to us in these appeals. Therefore, our analysis is limited to the two billboard locations on which WWR rests its First

Amendment challenge to the Freeway Facing Sign Ban. 

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teenth Street. While the relocated billboards would face a

freeway, the Fifteenth Street SUD resulted in a net reduction

of billboards in the City.

B. Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans

Supergraphic billboards are large-format signs projected

onto or hung from building walls. See LAMC § 14.4.2. They

are often made of large vinyl or mesh canvasses, which are

hung with cables from the sides of buildings. Id. Off-site billboards display messages directing attention to a business or

product not located on the same premises as the sign itself. Id.

For example, a billboard promoting the latest blockbuster

movie, but attached to a furniture store, is an off-site sign. The

same billboard, when attached to a theater playing the movie,

is an on-site sign. Article 4.4 contains the Supergraphic and

Off-Site Sign Bans, which prohibit these types of billboards.

Id. §§ 14.4.4(B)(9), (11). 

However, the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans exempt

“signs that are specifically permitted pursuant to a legally

adopted specific plan, supplemental use district or an

approved development agreement.” Id. A “specific plan” is a

land use plan that provides details for the implementation of

the City’s general land use plan. See id. § 11.5.7(A) (“A specific plan shall provide by ordinance regulatory controls or

incentives for the systematic execution of the General Plan.”);

see also Cal. Gov’t Code § 65450. A SUD is a land use planning device employed to “regulate and restrict the location of

certain types of uses whose requirements are difficult to anticipate and cannot adequately be provided for in the” City’s

general zoning plan. LAMC § 12.32(S)(1)(a). “Sign districts,”

like the Fifteenth Street SUD discussed above, are among the

recognized types of SUDs. Id. § 13.11. Finally, a “development agreement” is a mechanism by which the City may provide a developer with certainty that existing rules, policies,

and regulations will continue to govern his project once it has

been approved. See Cal. Gov’t Code § 65864. 

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The Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans do not specify

the circumstances under which any of these exceptions may

be invoked, but other laws provide that SUDs and development agreements must not conflict with specific plans, which,

in turn, must not conflict with the City’s general plan. See

Cal. Gov’t Code § 65454 (specific plans); id. § 65867.5(b)

(development agreements); LAMC § 13.11(C) (SUDs). The

authority to employ each exception to the Supergraphic and

Off-Site Sign Bans derives, not from Article 4.4, but from the

City’s legislative power to control local land use. See Cal.

Gov’t Code § 65867.5(a) (development agreements); LAMC

§ 11.5.7(A) (specific plans); id. § 12.32 (land use legislative

actions); id. § 13.11(B) (SUDs); Los Angeles, Cal., City

Charter § 558 (procedures for adoption of land use ordinance).

II. Procedural History

WWR sued to enjoin enforcement of the Freeway Facing

Sign Ban and the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans. First,

relying on Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public

Service Commission of New York, 447 U.S. 557 (1980),

WWR argued that the Freeway Facing Sign Ban is an unconstitutionally underinclusive restriction on commercial speech

because the City had, in fact, permitted some freeway facing

billboards despite the Ban. Second, WWR challenged the

Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans as facially unconstitutional prior restraints on speech. It argued that the exceptions

to the Bans vest the City Council with unbridled discretion to

select among preferred speakers because those exceptions

lack objective criteria for their application. 

WWR did not assert a Central Hudson challenge to the

Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans even though the district

court granted leave to amend the complaint more than one

year into the litigation and several months after the scheduling

order’s deadline. In granting leave at that late juncture, the

district court warned that it would not entertain any further

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amendments to the pleadings, which “should have been settled long ago.” After that, WWR did not seek leave to raise

new legal theories.

The district court granted WWR summary judgment on its

First Amendment claims. See World Wide Rush, LLC v. City

of Los Angeles, 579 F. Supp. 2d 1311 (C.D. Cal. 2008)

(“World Wide Rush I”). It concluded that the Freeway Facing

Sign Ban violates the First Amendment because the City’s

decisions to allow freeway facing billboards at the Staples

Center and in the 15th Street SUD undermine its stated interests in safety and aesthetics. Id. at 1328. It ruled that “preserving even one freeway-facing sign” was fatal to the Freeway

Facing Sign Ban. Id. The district court also concluded that the

Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans violate the First Amendment because “the City can avoid the blanket ban on off-site

and supergraphic signs simply by enacting a specific plan in

a certain area, but there are no standards that would prevent

the City from enacting a specific plan because it wishes to

approve particular speech or a particular speaker.” Id. at 1319.

Further, it found that the requirement that SUDs and development agreements conform to specific plans is “a loophole that

eviscerates the standards” governing SUDs and development

agreements. Id. at 1321. The district court concluded, “The

City has set up a system that allows it to eliminate speech

based on content.” Id. Accordingly, the district court entered

an order enjoining the City from enforcing the Freeway Facing Sign Ban and the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans as

to WWR’s billboards. 

The City thereafter decided that several of WWR’s supergraphic billboards violated other Article 4.4 provisions not

covered by the district court’s injunction. For instance, the

City cited WWR for violations of Article 4.4’s regulations

restricting the size of “wall signs” and for failing to obtain

proper permits for several billboards. Faced with the new citations, WWR returned to the district court, arguing that the

City was using other provisions of Article 4.4 to circumvent

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the district court’s order and that it could not obtain the necessary permits because the City continued to enforce the invalidated provisions. The district court concluded that the City

improperly had denied WWR permits and issued WWR citations under the guise of other Article 4.4 provisions, when, in

fact, the City was continuing to enforce the Supergraphic and

Off-Site Sign Bans in contravention of the injunction. World

Wide Rush, LLC v. City of Los Angeles, 605 F. Supp. 2d 1088,

1105-11 (C.D. Cal. 2009) (“World Wide Rush II”). The district court found the City in civil contempt and required it to

discharge certain citations. Id. at 1111-12.

Meanwhile, other billboard companies got in on the action.

As the district court explained, “Not long [after issuance of

the World Wide Rush I injunction], numerous billboard companies began putting Supergraphic Signs up all over Los

Angeles. . . . As a result, well-traveled thoroughfares that contained any sort of sizable building were soon pockmarked

with Supergraphic Signs.” Id. at 1092. The City responded in

kind by adopting a complete moratorium on new supergraphic

and off-site signs. See Los Angeles, Cal., Ordinance No.

180445 (2008). Some billboard companies, including Sky

Tag, filed copycat lawsuits, in which they sought injunctions

to protect their own billboards from City enforcement efforts.

For the reasons announced in the World Wide Rush I opinion,

the district court enjoined the City from enforcing the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans as to certain of Sky Tag’s billboards. See World Wide Rush II at 1112-14.

The City appeals the district court’s grant of summary

judgment and an injunction in favor of WWR in World Wide

Rush I. It also appeals the civil contempt judgment and

injunction in favor of Sky Tag in World Wide Rush II. WWR

appeals the district court’s refusal to entertain any further

amendments, supplements, or changes to its complaint after

granting leave to file its amended and supplemental complaint.

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The district court exercised jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.

§ 1331. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. “We

review de novo the constitutionality of a local ordinance.”

G.K. Ltd. Travel v. City of Lake Oswego, 436 F.3d 1064, 1070

(9th Cir. 2006). “We review for abuse of discretion the district

court’s civil contempt order.” Hook v. Ariz. Dep’t of Corrs.,

107 F.3d 1397, 1403 (9th Cir. 1997). We review for abuse of

discretion the district court’s decisions as to amendments to

the complaint. See Gardner v. Martino, 563 F.3d 981, 990

(9th Cir. 2009).

DISCUSSION

I. Constitutionality of the Sign Regulations

Courts have “often faced the problem of applying the broad

principles of the First Amendment to unique forms of expression. . . . Each method of communicating ideas is a law unto

itself and that law must reflect the differing natures, values,

abuses and dangers of each method. We deal here with the

law of billboards.” Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 453

U.S. 490, 500-01 (1981) (citations, footnote, and internal quotation marks omitted).

A. Freeway Facing Sign Ban

[1] “In Central Hudson, the Supreme Court announced a

four-part test for assessing the constitutionality of a restriction

on commercial speech: (1) if ‘the communication is neither

misleading nor related to unlawful activity,’ then it merits

First Amendment scrutiny as a threshold matter; in order for

the restriction to withstand such scrutiny, (2) ‘[t]he State must

assert a substantial interest to be achieved by restrictions on

commercial speech;’ (3) ‘the restriction must directly advance

the state interest involved;’ and (4) it must not be ‘more

extensive than is necessary to serve that interest.’ ” Metro

Lights, L.L.C. v. City of Los Angeles, 551 F.3d 898, 903 (9th

Cir. 2009) (quoting Cent. Hudson, 447 U.S. at 564-66), cert.

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denied 130 S. Ct. 1014 (2009). “[T]he last two steps of the

Central Hudson analysis basically involve a consideration of

the ‘fit’ between the legislature’s ends and the means chosen

to accomplish those ends.” Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514

U.S. 476, 486 (1995) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

[2] As a general matter, there is no question that restrictions on billboards advance cities’ substantial interests in aesthetics and safety. Metromedia, 453 U.S. at 508-10; Metro

Lights, 551 F.3d at 904. However, a city “may diminish the

credibility of [its] rationale for restricting speech in the first

place” where it exempts some speech from the general restriction. Metro Lights, 551 F.3d at 905 (internal quotation marks

omitted). The critical question is whether the City “denigrates

its interest in . . . safety and beauty and defeats its own case

by permitting” freeway facing billboards at the Staples Center

and in the Fifteenth Street SUD while forbidding other freeway facing billboards. Metromedia, 453 U.S. at 510-11. “To

put it in the context of the Central Hudson test, a regulation

may have exceptions that undermine and counteract the interest the government claims it adopted the law to further; such

a regulation cannot directly and materially advance its aim,”

and is, therefore, unconstitutionally underinclusive. Metro

Lights, 551 F.3d at 905 (quoting Rubin, 514 U.S. at 489); see

also Greater New Orleans Broad. Ass’n, Inc. v. United States,

527 U.S. 173, 190-93 (1999) (a regulation may be unconstitutionally underinclusive if it “is so pierced by exceptions and

inconsistencies” that it cannot advance the government’s

interest in the regulation). 

[3] Here, the City’s exceptions to the Freeway Facing Sign

Ban do not undermine the City’s interests in aesthetics and

safety. Indeed, the exceptions were made for the express purpose of advancing those very interests. Allowing billboards at

the Staples Center was an important element of a project to

remove blight and dangerous conditions from downtown Los

Angeles. Similarly, the Fifteenth Street SUD was an outgrowth of the City’s efforts to improve traffic flow, and

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thereby safety, on Santa Monica Boulevard. Not only did the

agreement to allow signs in the Fifteenth Street SUD advance

that project, it also resulted in a net reduction of billboards in

the City. Ironically, the most significant denigration to the

City’s interests in traffic safety and aesthetics might result,

not from allowing the freeway facing billboards at the Staples

Center and in the Fifteenth Street SUD, but instead from strict

adherence to the Freeway Facing Sign Ban, which might have

severely hampered, if not completely defeated, both projects.

[4] The district court took an all-or-nothing approach to its

constitutional analysis of the Freeway Facing Sign Ban, stating that to “preserv[e] even one freeway-facing sign . . .

undermines the City’s stated interests in traffic safety and aesthetics.” World Wide Rush I, 579 F. Supp. 2d at 1328. Our

First Amendment jurisprudence, however, contemplates some

judicial “deference for a municipality’s reasonably graduated

response to different aspects of a problem.” Metro Lights, 551

F.3d at 910. As the Supreme Court has explained, “It does not

follow from the fact that the city has concluded that some

commercial interests outweigh its municipal interests in this

context that it must give similar weight to all other commercial advertising.” Metromedia, 453 U.S. at 512. Moreover,

exceptions to the Freeway Facing Sign Ban must be considered holistically, not in isolation. Again, the Supreme Court

has explained, “[T]he effect of the challenged restriction on

commercial speech ha[s] to be evaluated in the context of the

entire regulatory scheme, rather than in isolation.” Greater

New Orleans, 527 U.S. at 192; see also Metro Lights, L.L.C.,

551 F.3d at 904 (“[W]e must look at whether the City’s ban

advances its interest in its general application, not specifically

with respect to Metro Lights.”). 

[5] “[E]valuated in the context of the entire regulatory

scheme,” the challenged exceptions to the Freeway Facing

Sign Ban do not render the Ban “so pierced by exceptions and

inconsistencies” as to be unconstitutionally underinclusive.

Greater New Orleans, 527 U.S. at 190-92. The City reason7594 WORLD WIDE RUSH v. LOS ANGELES

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ably may have concluded that, on balance, safer and more

attractive thoroughfares would result from renovations to

Santa Monica Boulevard and a reduction in the City’s total

number of billboards, even if this required installation of

some freeway facing billboards along Fifteenth Street. The

City also reasonably may have concluded that the benefits of

redeveloping and attracting people to an otherwise dangerous

and blighted downtown area outweighed the harm of additional freeway facing billboards restricted to that area. See,

e.g., Metro Lights, 551 F.3d at 911 (even with some exceptions, sign ban “went a long way toward cleaning up the clutter, which the City believed to be a worthy legislative goal”).

[6] In concluding otherwise, the district court relied on the

Supreme Court’s decision in Greater New Orleans. There, the

Court concluded that a federal regulation prohibiting advertisements for gambling in private casinos but allowing advertisements for gambling on reservations violated the First

Amendment. Greater New Orleans, 527 U.S. at 177-79.

Greater New Orleans is inapposite, however, because the regulatory distinction between the two types of casinos counteracted the government’s purported interest in minimizing

gambling. As the Greater New Orleans Court explained,

allowing one type of advertising while prohibiting the other

would merely channel gamblers to the reservations, thus rendering the regulation “squarely at odds with the governmental

interests asserted in this case.” Id. The Freeway Facing Sign

Ban is not a means by which the evil sought to be prohibited

is simply channeled elsewhere, at odds with the asserted governmental interests. Rather, the City submitted a convincing

rationale — which is entirely consistent with its asserted governmental interest — for exempting some freeway facing

signs from its Ban.

The other cases upon which WWR relies are similarly inapposite. In each of those cases, the government created a distinction between permissible and prohibited forms of

commercial speech, and, in each case, the distinction underWORLD WIDE RUSH v. LOS ANGELES 7595

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mined the government’s asserted interests in the regulation as

a whole. See Rubin, 514 U.S. at 489 (“There is little chance

that § 205(e)(2) can directly and materially advance its aim,

while other provisions of the same Act directly undermine

and counteract its effects.”); City of Cincinnati v. Discovery

Network, Inc., 507 U.S. 410, 417-18 (1993) (no “reasonable

fit” between government interests and regulation which

required removal of 62 newsracks but allowed 1,500 to 2,000

to remain); Ballen v. City of Redmond, 466 F.3d 736, 743 (9th

Cir. 2006) (exceptions to sign ban “compromise the City’s

interests” in traffic safety and aesthetics). Here, by contrast,

the City permitted billboards at the Staples Center and in the

Fifteenth Street SUD precisely because of its interests in

safety and aesthetics. In addition, the exceptions to the Freeway Facing Sign Ban are content-neutral, whereas the distinctions employed in Greater New Orleans (private casinos

versus reservation casinos), Rubin (beer labels versus wine

labels), Discovery Network (commercial newsracks versus

non-commercial newsracks), and Ballen (content-based

exceptions to ban) implicated the messages communicated by

the signs at issue. See Metro Lights, 551 F.3d at 904-05 (“[A]

regulation can be unconstitutional if it in effect restricts too

little speech because its exemptions discriminate on the basis

of the signs’ messages.”) (internal quotation marks omitted);

Ballen, 466 F.3d at 743 (“[T]he City’s use of a content-based

ban rather than a valid time, place, or manner restriction indicates that the City has not carefully calculated the costs and

benefits associated with the burden on speech imposed by its

discriminatory, content-based prohibition.”). 

[7] Our recent decision in Metro Lights, in which we

rejected a Central Hudson challenge to an LAMC provision

banning off-site signs generally, but permitting them on bus

shelters, is more analogous.2 Metro Lights, 551 F.3d at

2The district court did not have the benefit of our decision in Metro

Lights when it decided World Wide Rush I. In World Wide Rush II, the district court rejected the City’s argument that Metro Lights abrogated the

district court’s decision in World Wide Rush I. See World Wide Rush II,

605 F. Supp. 2d at 1016. 

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900-01. Relying on Metromedia, we approved the City’s justification for the bus shelter advertisement exception that “proliferation of offsite advertising by numerous and disparate

private parties creates more distracting ugliness than a single,

controlled series of advertisements on city property over

which the City wields contractual supervision.” Id. at 910. We

concluded that “the specific exception in question here does

not weaken the direct link between the City’s objectives and

its general prohibition of offsite advertising.” Id.; see also

Outdoor Sys., Inc. v. City of Mesa, 997 F.2d 604, 611 (9th Cir.

1993) (“[T]here is a reasonable fit between the sign codes and

the interests they seek to achieve.”); Clear Channel Outdoor,

Inc. v. City of New York, 594 F.3d 94, 110 (2d Cir. 2010)

(“The City may legitimately allow limited and controlled

advertising on street furniture, while also reducing clutter on

City sidewalks. Allowing some signs does not constitutionally

require a city to allow all similar signs.”). Here, as in Metro

Lights, the City’s decision to permit some freeway facing billboards at the Staples Center and in the Fifteenth Street SUD

does not break the link between the Freeway Facing Sign Ban

and the City’s objectives in traffic safety and aesthetics.

B. Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans

[8] Under the prior restraint doctrine, “a law cannot condition the free exercise of First Amendment rights on the unbridled discretion of government officials.” Desert Outdoor

Adver. v. City of Moreno Valley, 103 F.3d 814, 818 (9th Cir.

1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Regulations must

contain narrow, objective, and definite standards to guide the

licensing authority and must require the official to provide an

explanation for his decision.” Long Beach Area Peace Network v. City of Long Beach, 574 F.3d 1011, 1025 (9th Cir.

2009) (internal quotation marks, citations, and alterations

omitted); see also Seattle Affiliate of the Oct. 22nd Coal. to

Stop Police Brutality v. City of Seattle, 550 F.3d 788, 798 (9th

Cir. 2008) (ordinance must have “narrowly drawn, reasonable

and definite standards that guide the hand of the administraWORLD WIDE RUSH v. LOS ANGELES 7597

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tor”). The district court concluded that the Supergraphic and

Off-Site Sign Bans were unconstitutional prior restraints on

speech because their exceptions impermissibly vest the City

Council with unbridled discretion to select among speakers on

the basis of content. This legal conclusion was erroneous,

however, because the prior restraint doctrine does not apply

to the legislative function at issue here. The exceptions to the

Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans are rooted in the City

Council’s legislative discretion, not its discretion to make

executive decisions as part of the LAMC’s regulatory scheme.

This distinction makes all the difference.

[9] “Unbridled discretion challenges typically arise when

discretion is delegated to an administrator, police officer, or

other executive official,” as opposed to a legislative body.

Long Beach Area Peace Network, 574 F.3d at 1042; see, e.g.,

Thomas v. Chi. Park Dist., 534 U.S. 316, 319-20 (2002)

(superintendent of park district); City of Lakewood v. Plain

Dealer Publ’g Co., 486 U.S. 750, 753 (1988) (mayor); Outdoor Media Group, Inc. v. City of Beaumont, 506 F.3d 896,

904 (9th Cir. 2007) (planning director); G.K. Ltd. Travel, 436

F.3d at 1082 (permitting official); Desert Outdoor Adver., 103

F.3d at 818-19 (city official). In rare circumstances, however,

a legislative body’s reservation of authority could constitute

an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. As we recently

explained: 

[W]here a legislative body has enacted a permitting

scheme for expressive conduct but has reserved

some decisionmaking authority for itself under that

scheme, that reserved authority is vulnerable to challenge on grounds of unbridled discretion.

Long Beach Area Peace Network, 574 F.3d at 1042. The First

Amendment requires standards to cabin the legislative body’s

authority to execute aspects of the regulatory scheme in such

circumstances because that authority “is distinct from the gen7598 WORLD WIDE RUSH v. LOS ANGELES

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eral discretion a legislative body has to enact (or not enact)

laws.” Id. 

This is not that rare circumstance in which the legislative

body created a licensing power and reserved it for itself. The

City Council’s authority to enact special plans, create SUDS,

or enter into development agreements derives from its regular

and well-recognized legislative power to regulate land use. It

does not depend upon or derive from the Supergraphic and

Off-Site Sign Bans. The City Council would have the power

to employ any of those land use tools even if none was ever

mentioned in the Bans; the Bans do no more than affirm the

existence of these legislative powers. The First Amendment is

not implicated by the City Council’s exercise of legislative

judgment in these circumstances.

[10] Our recent decision in Long Beach Area Peace Network is illustrative. There, the city enacted a regulatory

scheme by which permits would be issued for certain gatherings in public places. See Long Beach Area Peace Network,

574 F.3d at 1025-26. The city council retained the ability to

waive permit fees, but the ordinance did not provide standards

to cabin the council’s exercise of that authority. Id. at 1041.

The ordinance was subject to attack under the prior restraint

doctrine because the city council’s authority was “unlike its

usual legislative authority.” Id. at 1042. Instead, that authority

derived exclusively from the permitting scheme: 

Absent a preexisting permitting scheme, a city council could not in advance impose service charges or

other fees on a group seeking to hold a demonstration in a public forum. 

Id. Here, by contrast, the City Council does have the authority

to employ specific plans, SUDs, and development agreements

absent the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans. Because the

prior restraint doctrine does not require the City to restrict

“the general discretion a legislative body has to enact (or not

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enact) laws,” the district court erred in concluding that the

Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans are unconstitutional

prior restraints on speech. Id. 

II. Injunction and Contempt

[11] “[A] person subject to an injunction must ordinarily

obey it.” Irwin v. Mascott, 370 F.3d 924, 931 (9th Cir. 2004)

(discussing Walker v. City of Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307

(1967)). However, one may challenge an injunction with

which one disagrees “through the usual processes of law, such

as an appeal.” Id. The City appropriately took that approach

here, appealing the underlying injunction as well as the order

finding it in contempt. Vacatur of the injunction entered in

World Wide Rush I voids the civil contempt order entered in

World Wide Rush II. See United States v. United Mine Workers of Am., 330 U.S. 258, 295 (1947) (“The right to remedial

relief falls with an injunction which events prove was erroneously issued.”); Kirkland v. Legion Ins. Co., 343 F.3d 1135,

1142-43 (9th Cir. 2003) (“Because entering the order to pay

was an abuse of discretion, the corresponding contempt order

cannot stand.”); Davies v. Grossmont Union High Sch. Dist.,

930 F.2d 1390, 1394 (9th Cir. 1991) (“[T]he legitimacy of the

contempt adjudication is based on the validity of the underlying order.”).

III. Amendments to the Pleadings

WWR could have, but failed to, assert a Central Hudson

challenge to the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans. WWR

argues that this is so because the district court abused its discretion in curtailing amendments to the pleadings. We disagree. 

On January 7, 2007, WWR filed its initial complaint, which

the district court would later describe as, “to put it mildly, disorganized.” Following a motion to dismiss, the district court

concluded that WWR could proceed on allegations that the

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LAMC impermissibly vested unbridled discretion in a Cultural Affairs Committee and a Community Redevelopment

Agency and on a facial challenge to the LAMC’s “Hazard to

Traffic” provision, which is distinct from the Freeway Facing

Sign Ban. See LAMC § 14.4.5. The initial complaint did not

contain a Central Hudson challenge to the Freeway Facing

Sign Ban or a prior restraint challenge to the Supergraphic

and Off-Site Sign Bans. The scheduling order’s September

24, 2007, deadline for amending the pleadings came and went

without activity. As the district court stated, “This should

have settled the pleadings.” It did not. 

On January 14, 2008, WWR moved for a preliminary

injunction, raising for the first time its Central Hudson challenge to the Freeway Facing Sign Ban and its unconstitutional

prior restraint challenge to the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign

Bans. On April 3, 2008, instead of denying WWR’s preliminary injunction motion for raising claims beyond the scope of

the complaint, the district court extended the deadline for

amendments to the pleadings to May 5, 2008, and accepted

WWR’s amended complaint, which incorporated its new First

Amendment claims. At that time, the district court admonished the parties that it would not entertain any further amendments to the pleadings after May 5, noting that “the pleadings

should have been settled long ago.” The new May 5, 2008,

deadline for amending the pleadings came and went without

further activity; WWR never sought leave for further amendments. 

[12] Specifically, WWR never moved for leave to add to

its complaint a Central Hudson challenge to the Supergraphic

and Off-Site Sign Bans. The district court could not rule on

a motion that WWR never made, and we reject WWR’s

attempt to appeal a nonexistent denial of a nonexistent

motion. Given the absence of an adverse ruling from which

it may appeal, WWR argues that it would have been futile to

seek leave to amend the complaint in light of the district

court’s statement that such requests would not be entertained.

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We do not share WWR’s view that the district court’s admonition was an excuse for WWR’s failure to at least proffer a

proposed amendment to the pleadings. Assuming, however,

that the panel may consider the language of the district court’s

April 3 order as a de facto prospective denial of motions to

amend the pleadings, WWR’s argument still fails. The district

court’s discretion to deny leave to amend is particularly broad

where a plaintiff previously has amended the complaint. See

Zucco Partners, LLC v. Digimarc Corp., 552 F.3d 981, 1007

(9th Cir. 2009). Here, WWR already had been given leave to

amend the complaint more than a year into the litigation and

several months after passage of the scheduling order’s deadline. The district court understandably was wary of further

delays. WWR advances no reason — much less a good reason

— for its failure to amend its complaint to include a Central

Hudson challenge to the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign

Bans. This oversight is particularly inexcusable given that

WWR was aware of the possibility of a Central Hudson claim

(as evident from its challenge to the Freeway Facing Sign

Ban) and was aware of the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign

Bans (as evident from its unbridled discretion challenge to

those Bans).

CONCLUSION

The district court erred in holding that the billboards at the

Staples Center and in the Fifteenth Street SUD render the

Freeway Facing Sign Ban an unconstitutionally underinclusive restriction on commercial speech under Central Hudson.

The district court also erred in concluding that the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans are unconstitutional prior

restraints on speech. We therefore REVERSE the grant of

summary judgment in favor of WWR and VACATE the

injunctions in favor of WWR and Sky Tag. We also

REVERSE the district court’s order finding the City in civil

contempt of the injunction as to WWR’s billboards. We

AFFIRM the district court’s order amending the scheduling

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order and admonishing the parties that future amendments

would not be entertained.

AFFIRMED in part; REVERSED and VACATED in

part.

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