Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-07140/USCOURTS-caDC-12-07140-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition
Appellant
District of Columbia
Appellee
Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 24, 2016 Decided January 24, 2017 

No. 12-7139 

ACT NOW TO STOP WAR AND END RACISM COALITION AND 

MUSLIM AMERICAN SOCIETY FREEDOM FOUNDATION, 

APPELLEES

v. 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 

APPELLANT

Consolidated with 12-7140 

Appeals from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:07-cv-01495) 

Carl J. Schifferle, Assistant Attorney General, Office of 

the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the 

cause for appellant/cross-appellee. With him on the briefs 

were Karl A. Racine, Attorney General, Todd S. Kim, 

Solicitor General, and Loren L. AliKhan, Deputy Solicitor 

General. 

Mara E. Verheyden-Hilliard argued the cause for 

appellees/cross-appellants. With her on the briefs were Carl 

L. Messineo and Andrea Costello. 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 1 of 41
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Before: ROGERS and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and 

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge. 

 PILLARD, Circuit Judge: Like many municipalities 

around the country, the District of Columbia regulates the 

manner in which members of the public may post signs on the 

District’s lampposts. District of Columbia law allows a 

posted sign to remain on a public lamppost for up to 180 days. 

But a sign relating to an event must be removed within 30 

days after the event, whether the 180-day period has expired 

or not. Thus, the District’s rule may in some cases give less 

favorable treatment to signs that relate to an event than to 

signs that do not. 

Two nonprofit organizations, the Act Now to Stop War 

and End Racism Coalition (ANSWER) and the Muslim 

American Society Freedom Foundation (MASF) (together, 

the organizations), challenge the District’s sign-posting rule. 

MASF brings a pre-enforcement challenge to the rule as 

unconstitutional on its face in violation of the First 

Amendment and due process. MASF first argues that the 

distinction between event-related and other signs is content 

based yet cannot meet strict First Amendment scrutiny and 

that, even if the rule is not content based, it fails the 

intermediate scrutiny applicable to content-neutral time, 

place, and manner restrictions. Second, MASF contends that 

the regulation delegates an impermissible degree of 

enforcement discretion to the District’s inspectors in violation 

of due process. It further challenges what it contends is strict 

liability on the originators of posters for any violation of the 

sign-posting rule, which MASF argues also contravenes its 

speech and due process rights. ANSWER, unlike MASF, was 

cited by the District for violations of the regulation. 

ANSWER seeks damages under section 1983, contending that 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 2 of 41
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it did not in fact violate the regulation and that citations were 

unconstitutional retaliation against it for its postering. 

The district court granted summary judgment to MASF, 

invalidating the regulation’s treatment of event-related posters 

on both First Amendment and due process grounds, but 

rejecting MASF’s strict-liability objection. The court also 

sanctioned the District for seeking discovery in the face of an 

order granting limited discovery to plaintiffs. The district 

court granted summary judgment to the District on 

ANSWER’s section 1983 damages claim for lack of a 

showing of a policy, custom, or practice of retaliatory 

enforcement, as required by Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of 

City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). The District and the 

organizations cross-appealed. 

We conclude that the regulation does not impose a 

content-based distinction because it regulates how long 

people may maintain event-related signs on public lampposts, 

not the content of the signs’ messages. The “event-related” 

category is not itself content based. Under the intermediate 

First Amendment scrutiny that is therefore applicable, the rule 

is a reasonable time, place, and manner restriction. It is 

narrowly tailored to further a well-established, admittedly 

significant governmental interest in avoiding visual clutter. 

The regulation’s definition of event-based signs also guides 

officials’ enforcement discretion sufficiently to avoid facial 

invalidation on due process grounds. Accordingly, we reverse 

the grant of summary judgment in MASF’s favor and remand 

for the district court to enter summary judgment for the 

District. 

On the organizations’ cross-appeal, we affirm the district 

court’s dismissal of ANSWER’s section 1983 damages claim 

that the District retaliated against it in violation of the First 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 3 of 41
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Amendment, and MASF’s claim that the District’s regulation 

imposes a system of strict liability the First Amendment does 

not allow. Finally, because discovery is presumptively 

available to all parties pursuant to the Federal Rules of Civil 

Procedure in the absence of a court order to the contrary, we 

vacate the district court’s imposition of discovery sanctions 

against the District for seeking discovery without leave of 

court. 

I. Background 

The District of Columbia began its regulation of signs on 

public lampposts with an outright prohibition in 1902. D.C. 

Police Regulations, Art. XII, § 2 (1902). The District 

partially relaxed that ban in 1958 to allow for the posting of 

signs on lampposts only with the permission of the District’s 

Commissioners. D.C. Police Regulations, Art. 20 § 2 (1958). 

After the District’s Corporation Counsel advised that the 

regulation might be constitutionally infirm for lack of clearly 

articulated standards, see Letter from Louis P. Robbins, 

Acting Corporation Counsel, to James W. Hill, Director, 

Dep’t of Licenses, Investigations, and Inspections (October 

12, 1978) (Gov’t Add. 13) [hereinafter Robbins Letter], the 

District revised the regulation to add specific criteria to limit 

enforcing officers’ discretion, see Street Sign Regulation 

Amendment Act of 1979, D.C. Law 3-50, 26 D.C. Reg. 2733 

(1979); see also Crime Prevention Sign Posting Act of 1980, 

D.C. Law 3-148, 27 D.C. Reg. 4884. Following the revisions, 

signs “not relate[d] to the sale of goods” could be affixed to 

lampposts for up to 60 days; election signs for District of 

Columbia candidates for public office were exempt from that 

overall limit but had to be taken down within 30 days after the 

election; and signs intended to aid neighborhood crime 

prevention were exempted from the time limits. See D.C. 

MUN. REGS. tit. 24 § 108.4-108.6 (1980). Commercial signs 

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could not be affixed to public lampposts at all. See id.

§ 108.4. The revised rule also articulated specific 

requirements for the manner in which signs could be posted 

on a lamppost “or appurtenances of a lamppost” to 

“minimiz[e] the need to repair lamp posts defaced by signs 

attached by adhesives or other permanent methods and the 

need to remove abandoned or improperly secured signs from 

lamp posts, the sidewalks and the streets.” Robbins Letter at 

2; see D.C. MUN. REGS. tit. 24, § 108.8-108.9 (1980). During 

the pendency of this case, the District twice further amended 

its lamppost rules, as described below. 

In the meantime, ANSWER, a “grassroots civil rights 

organization” that works to end war and oppose racism, 

Affidavit of Brian Becker ¶ 2 (Mar. 14, 2008), J.A. at 32, had 

posted signs advertising rallies in the District, including 

events in September 2007 and March 2010. MASF, an 

unincorporated nonprofit association that conducts “civil and 

human rights advocacy with a focus on empowering the 

Muslim American community,” Affidavit of Imam Mahdi 

Bray (Oct. 26, 2013) ¶ 6, Organizations’ Add. 2, has in the 

past and intends in the future to post signs that combine 

general messages of advocacy and references to specific 

events, see id. at 6-8. MASF “has sought to engage in 

postering to the same extent as is afforded others, including 

those favored within the District of Columbia municipal 

regulation system.” Id. at 9. The District of Columbia has 

not cited MASF, but in 2007 the District issued multiple 

citations against ANSWER under the then-current lamppost 

rule.

ANSWER and MASF sued the District, seeking a 

declaratory judgment that the District of Columbia’s lamppost 

rule violates their First Amendment and due process rights, 

and an injunction barring its enforcement. First Amended 

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Complaint, Act Now To Stop War & End Racism Coal. v. 

District of Columbia (ANSWER I), 570 F. Supp. 2d 72 

(D.D.C. 2008) (No. 07-1495). The district court dismissed 

both ANSWER’s and MASF’s claims for lack of standing, 

and in abstention from pending local administrative 

enforcement proceedings. ANSWER I, 570 F. Supp. 2d at 75-

78. The organizations appealed. 

This court reversed in part and remanded. Act Now to 

Stop War & End Racism Coal. v. District of Columbia

(ANSWER II), 589 F.3d 433, 434 (D.C. Cir. 2009). The court 

held that MASF had standing based on “a credible statement 

of intent to engage in violative conduct,” and had shown 

sufficient likelihood of enforcement against it because its 

allegations raised “somewhat more than the ‘conventional 

background expectation that the government will enforce the 

law.’” Id. at 435 (quoting Seegars v. Gonzales, 396 F.3d 

1248, 1253 (D.C. Cir. 2005)). At the motion to dismiss stage, 

the court reasoned, an affidavit from MASF’s director stating 

an intention to violate the regulation sufficed to establish 

standing. Id. at 436. As to ANSWER, the court found that 

the district court had correctly abstained under Younger v. 

Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), to the extent that charges against 

ANSWER for violations of the challenged regulation 

remained pending in the District of Columbia’s administrative 

process. ANSWER II, 589 F.3d at 436. 

While MASF and ANSWER’s appeal was pending 

before this court, the District of Columbia Department of 

Transportation amended the lamppost regulation. The 2010 

final rule made one distinction relevant to the plaintiffs’ 

claims: Signs “not related to a specific event” could be 

posted for up to 60 days while signs “related to a specific 

event” could be posted at any time beforehand, but had to be 

removed within 30 days after the event. 57 D.C. Reg. 528 

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(January 8, 2010) (amending D.C. MUN. REGS. tit. 24, 

§§ 108.5 & 108.6). Thus, in theory, event-related signs could 

be posted for months or years before the event they 

announced and for an additional 30 days thereafter, while 

signs that were not event related could be posted for a 

maximum of 60 days. 

On remand, ANSWER voluntarily dismissed its claims 

for prospective relief. See Stipulation of Dismissal, Act Now 

To Stop War & End Racism Coal. v. District of Columbia 

(ANSWER III), 798 F. Supp. 2d 134 (D.D.C. 2011) (No. 07-

1495). MASF, the only party still challenging the 

constitutionality of the District’s regulation going forward, 

amended its complaint in light of the revised rule, adding an 

as-applied challenge to the “event-related” distinction as 

content based. See Supplemental Pleading ¶¶ 16-17, 

ANSWER III, 798 F. Supp. 2d 134 (No. 07-1495). Because 

neither the earlier nor the revised regulation had been 

enforced against MASF, the district court dismissed MASF’s 

as-applied challenge, leaving only its facial challenges under 

the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause. ANSWER 

III, 798 F. Supp. 2d at 143. Those claims, the court held, 

could proceed to discovery. Id. at 150-51. 

Meanwhile, in its supplemental pleading after remand, 

ANSWER alleged that the District had “attacked” it with 

ninety-nine enforcement actions in March and April 2010 in 

retaliation for the content of its postering activity. The court 

dismissed that claim, holding that ANSWER had failed 

adequately to allege that the claimed retaliation resulted from 

a municipal custom or practice. ANSWER III, 798 F. Supp. 

2d at 154-55. The court also dismissed MASF’s claim that 

the regulation imposes a system of “strict liability” in 

violation of the First Amendment. Id. at 153. 

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In 2012, the District revised the regulation once more, 

yielding the version now before us. See 59 D.C. Reg. 273 

(Jan. 20, 2012). Section 108 currently provides that any 

sign—including those announcing events—may be affixed to 

a publicly owned lamppost for a maximum of 180 days, but 

that signs relating to specific events must be removed within 

30 days after the event. D.C. MUN. REGS. tit. 24, §§ 108.5, 

108.6. The regulation also continues to restrict the method of 

affixing signs on public lampposts: All signs must be 

“affixed securely to avoid being torn or disengaged by normal 

weather conditions,” id. § 108.8, but cannot “be affixed by 

adhesives that prevent their complete removal from the 

fixture, or that do damage to the fixture,” id. § 108.9. Signs 

may not be posted on “any tree in public space,” id. § 108.2, 

and no more than three copies of any sign may be posted on 

either side of the street on a given block, id. § 108.10. The 

2012 revision also added subsection 108.13, which defines an 

“event” as “an occurrence, happening, activity or series of 

activities, specific to an identifiable time and place, if 

referenced on the poster itself or reasonably determined from 

all circumstances by the inspector.” See 59 D.C. Reg. 273 

(codified at D.C. MUN. REGS. tit. 24, § 108.13). 

After discovery—which we discuss in Part II.E., infra, in 

connection with the sanctions order—the District and MASF 

cross-moved for summary judgment. The court granted 

summary judgment to MASF, reasoning that even if the 

regulation does not distinguish on the basis of content, 

subsections 108.5 and 108.6 nevertheless fail intermediate 

scrutiny under the First Amendment for want of admissible 

evidence showing how the regulation advances the city’s 

content-neutral purposes. Act Now to Stop War & End 

Racism Coal. v. District of Columbia (ANSWER IV), 905 F. 

Supp. 2d 317, 340-41 (D.D.C. 2012). It also held that 

subsection 108.13 was an impermissible delegation of 

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enforcement discretion in violation of the Due Process 

Clause. Id. at 332. The court sanctioned the District for 

seeking discovery in violation of the court’s scheduling order. 

Act Now to Stop War & End Racism Coal. v. District of 

Columbia, 286 F.R.D. 117 (D.D.C. 2012). The District and 

the organizations cross-appealed. 

We held these appeals in abeyance pending the Supreme 

Court’s resolution of Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 135 S. Ct. 2218 

(2015), see Order, Act Now to Stop War & End Racism Coal. 

v. District of Columbia, No. 12-7139 (D.C. Cir. August 20, 

2014), and, once Reed was decided, requested supplemental 

briefing addressing its applicability here. 

II. Analysis 

We begin by addressing the District’s contention that 

MASF lacks standing to sue. Finding standing, we proceed to 

MASF’s First Amendment and due process facial challenges. 

As to both, we find MASF’s challenges fall short, and 

accordingly reverse the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment in its favor. We affirm the court’s dismissal of 

ANSWER’s section 1983 claim for damages and MASF’s 

claim that the District’s rule imposes strict liability in 

violation of the First Amendment. Finally, we vacate the 

discovery sanctions again the District. 

A. MASF Has Standing to Challenge the District’s 

 Lamppost Regulation 

The District argues that MASF ceased operating in 2011, 

so has “lost standing” during the pendency of its suit. Gov’t 

Br. at 19. Even if MASF exists, the District asserts, it has 

failed to establish that the regulation causes it to suffer injury 

in fact. We disagree: An affidavit from MASF’s Imam Bray 

attests that MASF continues to exist as an unincorporated 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 9 of 41
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nonprofit association, and the District’s submissions raise no 

real question on that point. 

1. Evidence Shows MASF Exists. For a federal court 

to exercise jurisdiction, “an actual controversy must be extant 

at all stages of review, not merely at the time the complaint is 

filed.” Davis v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 554 U.S. 724, 733 

(2008); see also Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 

(1992) (plaintiff must support standing “with the manner and 

degree of evidence required at the successive stages of the 

litigation”). Thus, “[e]ven where litigation poses a live 

controversy when filed, we must dismiss a case as moot if 

events have so transpired that the decision will neither 

presently affect the parties’ rights nor have a more-thanspeculative chance of affecting them in the future.” Chamber 

of Commerce of U.S. v. E.P.A., 642 F.3d 192, 199 (D.C. Cir. 

2011) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). The District contends that this case has become 

moot because MASF no longer exists, thus eliminating it as a 

party whose rights could be affected.

MASF, as the party invoking our jurisdiction, “bears the 

burden of establishing” its standing, Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, a 

burden that is “correlative to the burden” to establish the 

substantive elements of its claims, Sierra Club v. E.P.A., 292 

F.3d 895, 900 (D.C. Cir. 2002). Even though the District did 

not challenge MASF’s existence when it moved for summary 

judgment because it learned of the evidence that it believes 

calls MASF’s existence into question only after noticing its 

appeal, we consider MASF’s standing de novo, as we would 

had it been challenged at the procedural stage to which the 

case had progressed in the district court. Scenic America, Inc. 

v. Anthony Foxx, 836 F.3d 42, 49-50 (D.C. Cir. 2016). 

Accordingly, on appeal from denial of summary judgment in 

MASF’s favor, there must be no material dispute about the 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 10 of 41
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facts that support its standing. We view the evidence and 

inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the District 

as the nonmoving party on MASF’s cross-motion for 

summary judgment. See Dunaway v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 

310 F.3d 758, 761 (D.C. Cir. 2002). 

Imam Bray’s affidavit suffices as an authoritative 

statement of MASF’s continued existence as an 

unincorporated nonprofit association under District of 

Columbia law. An “unincorporated nonprofit association” is 

“an unincorporated organization, consisting of 2 or more 

members joined under an agreement that is oral, in a record, 

or implied from conduct, for one or more common, nonprofit 

purposes.” D.C. Code § 29-1102(5) (2016). Such a nonprofit 

is “a legal entity distinct from its members and managers” and 

has “perpetual duration” unless otherwise provided. Id. § 29-

1105(a), (b). To operate as an unincorporated nonprofit 

association an organization need not be registered with the 

District, see id. § 29-1102(5), and it has the capacity on a 

member or manager’s initiative to sue in its own name, id. § 

29-1109. 

In his affidavit, Imam Bray attested that, “[t]hroughout 

the period of litigation, there have always been two or more 

persons (i.e. ‘members’ as that term is used in the District’s 

Uniform Unincorporated Nonprofit Association Act) who 

have participated in the management of the affairs of MASF 

or in the development of the policies and activities of MASF.” 

Bray Affidavit ¶ 4, Organizations’ Add. 2. The District has 

no evidence that the organization in fact lacks “2 or more 

members,” D.C. Code § 29-1102(5), who have joined together 

for a “common, nonprofit purpose,” id., namely “to engage in 

civil and human rights advocacy with a focus on empowering 

the Muslim American community,” Bray Affidavit ¶ 6, 

Organizations’ Add. 2. 

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The District challenges MASF’s existence based on an 

online newspaper report and a record from the District of 

Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. 

While this appeal was pending, the District learned of an 

online Muslim Link article reporting that MASF “announced 

its closure on June 17, 2011.” Gov’t Add. 40. The Link cited 

a statement from someone identifying himself as a MASF 

member that the organization did not have “the resources that 

would allow [continuing] advocacy and organizing work.” Id.

(alterations in original). In the online “comments” section of 

the document as printed and filed by the District, however, a 

member of the Muslim American Society’s Board of 

Trustees, Mazan Mokhtar, explained that the “reports of MAS 

Freedom’s closing are greatly exaggerated.” Gov’t Add. 42. 

Imam Bray’s declarations attest to MASF’s continued 

existence. Bray Affidavit ¶¶ 10-29, Organizations’ Add. 3-9. 

The conclusory and ambiguous Link document, 

unaccompanied by a declaration of the quoted individual or 

anyone else attesting to personal knowledge of the putative 

closing, fails to call into question MASF’s continued 

existence. 

The District also points to a record from the District of 

Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs 

(DCRA) stating that an entity referred to as “MASF, Inc.,” 

had its incorporation status “revoked.” See Gov’t Br. Add. 

44. MASF, however, avers that it is not the organization 

described in that DCRA record. MASF’s complaint does not 

refer to the organization as “MASF, Inc.,” see First Amended 

Complaint at 5, ANSWER I, 570 F. Supp. 2d 72 (No. 07-

1495), nor is it so described in the corporate disclosure 

statement to this court, see Corporate Disclosure Statement, 

Docketed February 28, 2013. For further confirmation, 

MASF points to Imam Bray’s sworn affidavit attesting that 

MASF has never been incorporated. See Bray Affidavit, 

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Organizations’ Add. 2-3. Imam Bray explains that he “was 

involved with the formation and abandonment of that shortlived separate corporation. Those papers were filed with the 

intent to create a 501(c)(4) corporation that would engage in 

activities coinciding with the 2008 Presidential election. 

However, the project was abandoned. The incorporation 

papers were, essentially, a false start.” Id. at 3. Thus, the 

District has not raised a material factual dispute as to whether 

the organization whose incorporation is listed as “revoked” is 

the party before us. 

Neither of the District’s submissions suffices to call into 

question MASF’s continued existence. 

2. MASF Has Established its Injury. The District also 

contends that, even if MASF exists, the lamppost regulation 

causes it no injury.

MASF brings a pre-enforcement challenge to the 

regulation before it has faced any punishment. As we 

explained when this case was previously before us, “standing 

to challenge laws burdening expressive rights” may require 

“only ‘a credible statement by the plaintiff of intent to commit 

violative acts and a conventional background expectation that 

the government will enforce the law.’” ANSWER II, 589 F.3d 

at 435 (quoting Seegars v. Gonzales, 396 F.3d 1248, 1253 

(D.C. Cir. 2005)). Here, MASF encounters “somewhat more 

than the ‘conventional background expectation that the 

government will enforce the law.’” Id. (quoting Seegars, 396 

F.3d at 1253). Given the District’s energetic issuance of 

multiple citations against ANSWER, the threat of 

enforcement against MASF is not “imagined or wholly 

speculative,” Seegars, 396 F.3d at 1252, nor is there reason to 

think “the challenged law is rarely if ever enforced,” id.

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The District now argues that the 2012 amendment of the 

lamppost regulation during the pendency of this case has 

eliminated the risk of harm that MASF identified. The 

District says that MASF has “never asserted an intent to 

poster in violation of the regulations invalidated on summary 

judgment”—i.e., the current rule, as promulgated in 2012. 

Gov’t Br. at 27. MASF’s only claimed injury, the District 

contends, stems from the disfavored status afforded to signs 

not related to an event under the superseded 2010 

Regulation—a disadvantage the current regulation eliminates.

The 2010 rule favored signs related to an event but, in 

eliminating that leeway, the 2012 version could be viewed to 

have swung too far in the other direction so as to disfavor 

event-related signs. See 59 D.C. Reg. 273 (2012). Under the 

2010 rule, signs “not related to a specific event” could be 

posted for up to 60 days; the rule did not specify how far in 

advance signs “related to a specific event” might be posted, so 

long as they were removed within 30 days of the event. 57 

D.C. Reg. 528 (Jan. 8, 2010). Thus, the 2010 rule on its face 

allowed event-related signs to remain on lampposts for 

months or years leading up to an event, while it restricted total 

posting time for signs not related to an event. Under the 

current rule as amended in 2012, however, no sign—whether 

or not related to an event—may remain affixed to a public 

lamppost for more than 180 days. D.C. MUN. REGS. tit. 24, 

§ 108.5 (2012). Signs relating to a specific event must, as 

before, be removed within 30 days after the event. Id.

§ 108.6. The current rule thus treats event-related signs, in 

some circumstances, less favorably than signs unrelated to 

any event: Assuming an event-related sign is posted fewer 

than 150 days before the event, the requirement that it be 

removed within 30 days after the event means it may not be 

displayed for the full 180-day period it would otherwise enjoy 

under the regulation if it were unrelated to an event. 

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The District notes that MASF filed its amended 

complaint on the heels of the 2010 rule, and contends that the 

Complaint expressed only MASF’s intent to violate the thencomparatively-restrictive 60-day limit that the 2010 rule 

imposed on signs not related to an event. But MASF’s intent 

is not so narrowly circumscribed: It intends to “engage in 

postering to the same extent as is afforded others.” Bray 

Affidavit ¶ 32, Organizations’ Add. 9. The organization has 

reasserted, since the rule revision in 2012, that it plans to post 

signs that would “violate the challenged regulations, 

specifically keeping them affixed for 180 days despite the 

regulations requiring any poster that is ‘related to a specific 

event’ to be removed 30 days post-event.” Id. ¶ 35. MASF 

also intends to post signs that contain both information related 

to events and information of continuing relevance and 

expresses uncertainty as to whether such signs are subject to 

the 30-day post-event limitation. See id. ¶ 37. The District’s 

arguments that MASF lacks standing therefore fail. 

B. The District’s Rule Does Not Violate the First 

 Amendment 

The District’s regulation of the public’s use of city 

lampposts as convenient places to post signs is a contentneutral time, place, and manner restriction that is sufficiently 

tailored to a significant governmental interest in avoiding 

clutter to comport with the First Amendment. As the district 

court held, “the District’s lampposts are a textbook example 

of a limited or designated public forum.” ANSWER III, 798 F. 

Supp. 2d at 145. The District might have chosen not to make 

its lampposts available as a place for the people to put up their 

signs. Members of the City Council v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 

466 U.S. 789, 814-15 (1984). But once it allows members of 

the public to post signs on its lampposts, the government 

lacks the “power to restrict expression because of its message, 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 15 of 41
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its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” Police Dep’t of 

City of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95 (1972). 

The level of constitutional scrutiny is determinative here. 

MASF contends that the lamppost rule is content-based so 

subject to strict scrutiny under Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 

whereas the District of Columbia says the rule is a contentneutral time, place, and manner restriction quite different 

from the content-based sign-posting regulations struck down 

in Reed. “Content-based laws—those that target speech based 

on its communicative content—are presumptively 

unconstitutional and may be justified only if the government 

proves that they are narrowly tailored to serve compelling 

state interests.” Reed, 135 S. Ct. at 2226. Government may, 

however, impose content-neutral limitations on the duration 

and manner in which the public uses government property for 

expressive conduct like sign-posting. “‘[C]ontent-neutral’ 

time, place, and manner regulations are acceptable so long as 

they are designed to serve a substantial governmental interest 

and do not unreasonably limit alternative avenues of 

communication.” City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 

475 U.S. 41, 47 (1986). 

We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment to the organizations on their First Amendment 

claim. Hodge v. Talkin, 799 F.3d 1145, 1155 (D.C. Cir. 

2015). 

1. The Rule Is Content Neutral. The District of 

Columbia’s lamppost rule makes a content-neutral distinction 

between event-related signs and those not related to an event. 

The District requires that, whatever their content or 

viewpoint, event-related signs be removed within thirty days 

after the event to prevent them from accumulating as visual 

clutter. That rule is not a “regulation of speech,” but “a 

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17 

regulation of the places where some speech may occur.” Hill 

v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703, 719 (2000). It does not target the 

“communicative content” of those signs, such as by 

distinguishing among various events by topic, see Reed, 135 

S. Ct. at 2226-27, but uniformly restricts the duration that 

event notices may remain physically affixed to public 

lampposts. The rule’s clutter-minimizing rationale does not 

depend on the content of a sign’s message. See Hill, 530 U.S. 

at 723; United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 376 (1968). 

Content distinctions are of special concern under the First 

Amendment because they pose the risk that government is 

favoring particular viewpoints or subjects. But a broad-based, 

general distinction between event-based signs and other signs 

poses no such risk. It instead simply reflects the commonsense understanding that, once an event has passed, signs 

advertising it serve little purpose and contribute to visual 

clutter. The promulgation and function of the District of 

Columbia’s wholly viewpoint neutral lamppost rule reveals 

“not even a hint of bias or censorship.” Taxpayers for Vincent, 

466 U.S. at 804. 

The fact that District officials may look at what a poster 

says to determine whether it is “event-related” does not render 

the District’s lamppost rule content-based. The “eventrelated” definition is just as content neutral as was Colorado’s 

“free zone” sustained in Hill, which prevented persons 

approaching patients on the sidewalk outside abortion clinics 

to come closer than eight feet to engage “in ‘oral protest, 

education, or counseling’ rather than pure social or random 

conversation.” 530 U.S. at 721. The Court in Hill

acknowledged that “the content of the oral statements made 

by an approaching speaker must sometimes be examined to 

determine whether the knowing approach is covered by the 

statute,” but noted that such “cursory examination” did not 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 17 of 41
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render the statute facially content based. Id. at 720, 722. So, 

too, laws banning “picketing,” and injunctions aimed at 

“demonstrating” that do not bar other types of expressive 

conduct are not rendered content based merely because, at a 

general level, the character of the expressive activity must be 

taken into account to discern whether the law applies. See id.

at 722-23 & n.30 (citing Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of 

Western New York, 519 U.S. 357, 366-67 n.3 (1997); Madsen 

v. Women’s Health Ctr., Inc., 512 U.S. 753, 759 (1994);

Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474 (1988); United States v. 

Grace, 461 U.S. 171 181 n.10 (1983); Police Dept. of 

Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. at 98). So, too, the fact that a 

District of Columbia official might read a date and place on a 

sign to determine that it relates to a bygone demonstration, 

school auction, or church fundraiser does not make the 

District’s lamppost regulation content based. 

MASF contends that Reed requires us to apply strict 

scrutiny because “[t]he regulation singles out specific subject 

matter—that deemed ‘related to a specific event’—for 

differential treatment,” and that, per Reed, there is no 

“exception from the content-neutrality requirement for eventbased laws.” Cross-Appellants’ Supp. Br. at 6 (quoting Reed, 

135 S. Ct. at 2231). But Reed does not view a bare distinction 

between event-related and other signs as itself content-based. 

The aspect of the Sign Code invalidated in Reed that the 

Court held to be content-based was its further distinctions 

among signs—including among event-related signs—based 

on their subject matter. 

The Town of Gilbert’s complex Sign Code exempted 

twenty-three categories of signs—based on their content—

from the town’s general ban on posting outdoor signs, and 

made additional content distinctions among the categories of 

exempted signs, including several content distinctions among 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 18 of 41
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event-related signs. 135 S. Ct. at 2224-25. In particular, the 

Sign Code gave different amounts of leeway to event-related 

signs depending on whether the event was, for example, 

political, commercial, construction-related, “special-event,” or 

religious or charitable. Political signs, including any 

“temporary sign designed to influence the outcome of an 

election called by a public body,” id. (quoting Gilbert, Ariz., 

Land Development Code (Sign Code or Code), Glossary of 

General Terms, at 23 (2005)), enjoyed relatively generous 

time limits; they could be posted for up to sixty days before a 

primary election, and, if the candidate to which they referred 

advanced to the general election, they could remain posted 

until fifteen days following the general election, id. at 2225. 

Signs relating to Temporary Uses and Special Events could be 

posted up to 24 hours in advance and remain posted through 

the day of the event, whereas Garage Sale signs and Bazaar 

signs could remain posted only until the “end of the sale.” 

Gilbert, Ariz., Land Development Code, Art. 4.402(K), (O), 

(Y). The Gilbert Sign Code permitted builders to post 

weekend directional signs “no earlier than 4:00 p.m. on 

Friday of each week” and had to remove them “no later than 

8:00 a.m. on the following Monday.” Id. Art. 4.405(B)(2)(f). 

The Town of Gilbert’s Sign Code gave least favorable 

treatment to the kind of sign that the petitioner church in Reed

sought to use: “Temporary Directional Signs Relating to a 

Qualifying Event.” 135 S.Ct. at 2225. Such a sign, defined 

as one that directed people to any “assembly, gathering, 

activity, or meeting sponsored, arranged, or promoted by a 

religious, charitable, community service, educational, or other 

similar non-profit organization,” could only be displayed for 

twelve hours before the event, and had to be removed within 

an hour after the event. Id. The Sign Code thus afforded 

more leeway to electioneering signs and even signs relating to 

specified Temporary Uses such as farmers’ markets or 

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fireworks displays than to signs for morning church services, 

which for the most part could not go up until after dark in 

winter, and had to be removed the next morning before coffee 

and doughnuts were fully digested. 

The rule the organizations here challenge, in contrast, 

distinguishes only between signs that are event-related and 

signs that are not. That distinction is not itself content-based 

under Reed. The organizations assert that Reed held that the 

“event-based” category is necessarily content-based because it 

“singles out specific subject matter—that deemed ‘related to a 

specific event’—for differential treatment.” Appellee Supp. 

Br. at 6. But Reed did not so hold. The passage the 

organizations invoke was directed at the notion the court of 

appeals had advanced that an otherwise “obvious contentbased inquiry,” such as the distinction between “political” and 

“ideological” signs relating to an upcoming election, would 

be somehow rendered content-neutral and thereby “evade 

strict scrutiny review simply because an event (i.e. an 

election) is involved.” Reed, 135 S. Ct. at 2231. 

Indeed, Reed makes clear that a municipality may 

continue to treat event-related signs differently from nonevent-related signs by means of time, place, and manner 

restrictions, as long as it does not distinguish among types of 

event based on content. What Reed held constitutionally 

suspect was the way in which the Town of Gilbert’s Sign 

Code made content-based distinctions among different types 

of issues and events, and even different types of signs relating 

to the same event. See Reed, 135 S Ct. at 2227. Unlike the 

content-based treatment of event-related signs invalidated in 

Reed, District of Columbia law treats all event-related signs 

alike and is thus content neutral. 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 20 of 41
21 

The Court in Reed emphasized that differences in time 

limits depending on the “communicative content” of the signs 

was what subjected the Town of Gilbert Sign Code to strict 

scrutiny. See id. at 2227. Because Gilbert’s Sign Code 

treated “the Church’s signs inviting people to attend its 

worship services . . . differently from signs conveying other 

types of ideas,” it was content-based regulation. Id. The 

Court emphasized that the Sign Code’s distinctions did not 

merely “hinge on ‘whether and when an event is occurring,’” 

and did not just “permit citizens to post signs on any topic 

whatsoever within a set period leading up to an election.” Id. 

at 2231. Rather, the Code impermissibly required town 

officials to examine each sign to determine whether, for 

example, it was “designed to influence the outcome of the 

election” and so must come down within fifteen days 

thereafter, or more generally “ideological,” in which case no 

time limit applied. Id. at 2231.

Justice Alito’s concurring opinion in Reed even more 

squarely rejects the position the organizations advance here 

that the distinction between event-related and other signs is 

itself content-based. Writing for three of the six justices in 

the majority, Justice Alito specifies that a regulation 

“imposing time restrictions on signs advertising a one-time 

event” does not by token of the “event-related” category as 

such amount to a content-based distinction. Id. at 2233 

(Alito, J., concurring). Rules treating event-related signs as a 

group differently based on their time-limited nature “do not 

discriminate based on topic or subject and are akin to rules 

restricting the times within which oral speech or music is 

allowed.” Id. That is, such rules are time, place, or manner 

restrictions, constitutionally permissible if they are narrowly 

tailored to serve a significant governmental interest. The 

three justices who concurred in Reed also clearly would not 

strictly scrutinize the rule we face here. See id. at 2236 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 21 of 41
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(Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment) (concluding that even 

the regulation at issue there “does not warrant ‘strict 

scrutiny’”); id. at 2236-38 (Kagan, J., joined by Ginsburg and 

Breyer, JJ., concurring in the judgment) (“The absence of any 

sensible basis for these and other distinctions dooms the 

Town’s ordinance under even the intermediate scrutiny that 

the Court typically applies to ‘time, place, or manner’ speech 

regulations. Accordingly, there is no need to decide in this 

case whether strict scrutiny applies to every sign ordinance in 

every town across this country containing a subject-matter 

exemption.”). 

All four of the opinions in Reed confirm that the District 

of Columbia’s lamppost rule is not a content-based regulation 

of speech. The District’s rule governs the time event-related 

signs may remain on public lampposts after the event has 

passed because obsolete signs cause a particular aesthetic 

harm; the rule makes no distinctions among event-related 

signs based on their particular communicative content. 

Reed’s definition of content-based regulation does not sweep 

in rules like the District’s that merely distinguish between all 

signs related to events and all non-event-related signs. It is 

therefore not subject to the strict scrutiny applicable to 

content-based regulation of speech, but must only meet the 

lesser constitutional scrutiny applicable to content-neutral 

rules affecting speech. 

Accordingly, we proceed to consider the validity of the 

regulation under the standard applicable to content-neutral 

regulation of speech. 

2. The Regulation Withstands Intermediate Scrutiny. 

Even if the regulation is content neutral, MASF argues, it 

nevertheless violates the First Amendment. The district court 

granted partial summary judgment to MASF on the ground 

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23 

that the regulation could not pass muster under the 

intermediate scrutiny applicable to content-neutral regulation 

of speech. 

A basic principle of the First Amendment—that “[e]ven 

protected speech is not equally permissible in all places and at 

all times,” Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, 

Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 799 (1985)—permits the government to 

impose “reasonable time, place, and manner regulations as 

long as the restrictions ‘are content-neutral, are narrowly 

tailored to serve a significant government interest, and leave 

open ample alternative channels of communication.’” United 

States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 177 (1983) (quoting Perry 

Educ. Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 45 

(1983)); see Clark v. Cmty. for Creative Non-Violence, 468 

U.S. 288, 298 n.8 (1984). Those same standards apply 

whether the regulated speech occurs in a traditional public 

forum—i.e. streets and parks—or on public property that the 

government has designated for the public’s use as a forum for 

speech and other expressive conduct, such as the lampposts in 

this case. Perry Educ. Ass’n, 460 U.S. at 45-46. It is the 

District of Columbia’s burden to show that its regulation 

serves a substantial governmental purpose and is tailored to 

that purpose. See McCullen v. Coakley, 134 S. Ct. 2518, 2540 

(2014); Edwards v. District of Columbia, 755 F.3d 996, 1002-

03 (D.C. Cir. 2014). We conclude that it meets that burden 

here. 

The District’s interest is plainly significant. 

“[M]unicipalities have a weighty, essentially esthetic interest 

in proscribing intrusive and unpleasant formats for 

expression.” Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 806; see also 

Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 453 U.S. 490, 507-08 

(1981) (finding no “substantial doubt” that the governmental 

objective of furthering “the appearance of the city” is a 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 23 of 41
24 

“substantial governmental goal[]”); Mahoney v. Doe, 642 

F.3d 1112, 1118 (D.C. Cir. 2011). The district court accepted 

that the prevention of clutter and litter is a substantial interest, 

see ANSWER IV, 905 F. Supp. 2d at 334 n.4, and MASF does 

not challenge that conclusion here, see Organizations’ Br. 44.

Instead, MASF argues that the District of Columbia has 

failed to show that its regulation actually serves that interest. 

But the event-related distinction in the District’s regulation 

turns on the very non-speech feature of that activity that 

makes it proscribable in the first place—that is, the visual 

blight of superannuated event signs. The District 

distinguishes event-related from non-event-related signs 

based on its “weighty, essentially esthetic interest in 

proscribing intrusive and unpleasant formats for expression.” 

Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 806. The District’s 

reasoning is straightforward: All signs have both 

communicative value and aesthetic costs. Leading up to an 

event, the communicative value of a sign related to that event 

outweighs the aesthetic harm that sign causes. But after the 

event, the communicative value of the sign is greatly 

diminished. The sign then becomes, from the District’s 

perspective, little more than visual clutter. See Robbins Letter 

at 2. There is also greater risk that an event-related sign will 

be abandoned after the event it announces, and not maintained 

like a sign with continuing relevance. Failure to remove such 

a sign is itself a manifestation of neglect. 

As the Supreme Court has explained, where the basis for 

distinguishing between types of communicative conduct 

“consists entirely of the very reason the entire class of speech 

at issue is proscribable, no significant danger of idea or 

viewpoint discrimination exists.” R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 

505 U.S. 377, 388 (1992). Such is the case here. That is not 

to say that an event-related sign loses all communicative 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 24 of 41
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value after the event has occurred. A viewer might have some 

interest, for example, in knowing what kinds of events had 

taken place (or been advertised) in the neighborhood in the 

past, even though she had missed the event itself. That an 

event-related sign might have some residual continuing 

relevance, however, does not bar the District from 

determining, in a content-neutral, across-the-board manner, 

that the visual clutter outweighs any such interest. 

The district court held that the District, “by submitting no 

evidence whatsoever” of the relationship between its 

admittedly substantial interest and the challenged regulation, 

had failed to meet its burden on summary judgment. 

ANSWER IV, 905 F. Supp. 2d at 344. The District responds 

that it has sought, since it first established criteria for 

permitting the public to post signs on District lampposts, to 

protect “legitimate governmental interests in caring for city 

lampposts and neighborhood aesthetics while 

contemporaneously affording citizens ample opportunity to 

exercise their First Amendment rights.” D.C. Council, Report 

on Bill 3-179, at 3 (Sept. 26, 1979). The District was not 

required in these circumstances to submit studies, statistics or 

other empirical evidence in order to defend the event-related 

distinction as a narrowly tailored means to serve its 

substantial aesthetic interest. That relationship is less a matter 

to be established by empirical evidence than it is the result of 

a straightforward line of reasoning: “A poster for an event 

that has already occurred is more likely to constitute litter and 

blight than a poster for a future event” or a non-event-related 

sign. ANSWER III, 798 F. Supp. 2d at 148. As the Supreme 

Court has observed, “[t]he quantum of empirical evidence 

needed to satisfy heightened judicial scrutiny of legislative 

judgments will vary up or down with the novelty and 

plausibility of the justification raised.” Nixon v. Shrink 

Missouri Gov’t PAC, 528 U.S. 377, 391 (2000). 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 25 of 41
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The District’s aesthetic judgment that an event-related 

sign for an event that has passed contributes to visual clutter 

is utterly plausible and not novel. See Nat’l Ass’n of Mfrs. v. 

Taylor, 582 F.3d 1, 16 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (explaining that 

because “a value judgment based on the common sense of the 

people’s representatives” is not like a justification based on 

“economic analysis that [is] susceptible to empirical 

evidence,” such a common-sense judgment need not be 

supported by an evidentiary showing); see also Blount v. 

S.E.C., 61 F.3d 938, 944-45 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (holding that 

there is no need to show evidence of any specific quid pro quo 

to support the regulation against First Amendment challenge 

because the dynamic to which regulation responded was “selfevident[]”). The justification for the rule’s requirement that 

event-related signs be removed within thirty days of the event 

is just the sort of common-sense judgment for which 

empirical data is likely to be both unavailable and 

unnecessary. 

The District has also shown that its lamppost rule leaves 

open ample alternative channels of communication. The rule 

does not limit anyone’s ability to say in multiple ways and for 

unlimited duration the very same thing she or he seeks to 

announce on lamppost posters. People may hand out leaflets 

or speak to passers-by with the same message, or put that 

message on bumper stickers. They may circulate or march 

wearing or holding the very same signs, post or erect the same 

signs on private property with the owners’ permission, and 

post messages on various electronic and physical billboards, 

publications, or pages to communicate about their events. 

Nothing in the challenged rule prevents anyone from using 

such channels for as long as they like, even after their event 

has taken place. The challenged rule merely limits eventrelated posters from continuing to occupy the limited space on 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 26 of 41
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publicly owned lampposts more than thirty days after the 

relevant event has passed. 

There are admitted advantages to postering: It is a 

relatively inexpensive method for an organization to 

broadcast its message; it can be targeted to a particular 

neighborhood; and it requires less time commitment than 

leafletting or a direct-advocacy campaign. See, e.g., 

Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 812. But the District’s 

regulation does not foreclose affixing posters to public 

lampposts as a channel of communication; it merely imposes 

reasonable limits on the duration that a poster may be left up 

after the event has passed. Moreover, as the Supreme Court 

explained in upholding a complete ban on the posting of signs 

on publicly owned lampposts, even a full ban does 

not affect any individual’s freedom to exercise the 

right to speak and to distribute literature in the same 

place where the posting of signs on public property is 

prohibited. To the extent that the posting of signs on 

public property has advantages over these forms of 

expression, there is no reason to believe that these 

same advantages cannot be obtained through other 

means. 

Id. at 812 (citation and footnote omitted); see also id. n.30. 

The District’s regulation amounts to a reasonable time, 

place, and manner restriction. Given the nature and 

plausibility of the District’s justification for requiring eventrelated signs to be removed within thirty days of the event, 

there was no need for the District to introduce evidence 

demonstrating the relationship between that justification and 

the regulation. 

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C. MASF’s Vagueness Challenge Fails 

MASF presents a further facial challenge to the lamppost 

regulation on the ground that it is unconstitutionally vague. A 

law may be vague in violation of the Due Process Clause for 

either of two reasons: “First, it may fail to provide the kind of 

notice that will enable ordinary people to understand what 

conduct it prohibits; second, it may authorize and even 

encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” City of 

Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41, 56 (1999); see F.C.C. v. 

Fox Television Stations, Inc., 132 S. Ct. 2307, 2317 (2012). 

MASF made both types of arguments to support its vagueness 

claim, but in granting summary judgment to MASF the 

district court addressed only the discriminatory-enforcement 

theory, holding that the definition of “event” in section 108.13 

of the regulation delegates impermissible enforcement 

discretion to the District’s inspectors. ANSWER IV, 905 F. 

Supp. 2d at 348. The court found it unnecessary to decide 

whether section 108.13 also fails to give constitutionally 

adequate notice of what amounts to an event-related sign, see 

id., and on appeal MASF does not press a notice theory of 

vagueness. We therefore consider only whether section 

108.13 delegates impermissibly unbridled enforcement 

discretion. 

First, we address a potential threshold obstacle. The 

District contends that a facial vagueness challenge is 

foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Holder v. 

Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1 (2010). Under 

Humanitarian Law Project, a party whose own expressive 

activity is clearly proscribed cannot challenge a law’s 

vagueness as it might apply to facts not before the court. Id. 

at 20. Humanitarian Law Project addressed “only whether 

the statute ‘provide[s] a person of ordinary intelligence fair 

notice of what is prohibited,’” 561 U.S. at 20 (quoting United 

USCA Case #12-7140 Document #1657053 Filed: 01/24/2017 Page 28 of 41
29 

States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 304 (2008)), observing that 

“Plaintiffs do not argue that the material-support statute grants 

too much enforcement discretion to the Government.” Id. 

We are aware of no decision that has applied Humanitarian 

Law Project to bar a facial challenge like MASF’s that a law 

is so vague as to subject the challenger itself to standardless 

enforcement discretion. See Fox, 132 S. Ct. at 2317-18

(assuming facial vagueness challenges remain available when 

based on an enforcement-discretion theory). 

Indeed, it is not apparent how the Humanitarian Law 

Project rule—barring a person to whom a legal provision 

clearly applies from challenging its facial failure to give 

sufficient notice to others, see 561 U.S. at 20—could apply to 

a claim that a law is so vague as to fail to guide the 

government’s enforcement discretion. At least in a preenforcement posture, such a claim is by its nature facial. 

“Self-censorship is immune to an ‘as applied’ challenge, for it 

derives from the individual’s own actions, not an abuse of 

government power.” City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer 

Publ’g Co., 486 U.S. 750, 757 (1988). “It is not merely the 

sporadic abuse of power by the censor but the pervasive threat 

inherent in its very existence that constitutes the danger to 

freedom of discussion.” Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 

97 (1940). Therefore, “only a facial challenge can effectively 

test the statute.” City of Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 758; see also

Morales, 527 U.S. at 52 (holding that vagueness that “fails to 

establish standards for the police and public that are sufficient 

to guard against the arbitrary deprivation of liberty interests” 

is subject to facial challenge). 

Whereas Humanitarian Law Project determined that the 

law’s applicability to the particular plaintiff was clear, a court 

faced with an arbitrary-enforcement theory has no way to 

discern in advance whether the exercise of unbridled 

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enforcement discretion will spare the plaintiff’s 

constitutionally protected expression from prosecution. Cf., 

e.g., Forsyth Cty. v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123, 133 

n.10 (1992) (describing as “irrelevant” the uncodified criteria 

actually applied to the challenger’s case by officials allegedly 

imbued with undue enforcement discretion). And once 

enforcement discretion has been exercised to punish 

constitutionally protected expression and the speaker defends 

on that ground, the vagueness defect escapes review. We thus 

proceed on the assumption that a facial, pre-enforcement 

vagueness challenge of the kind MASF presents here is 

consistent with Humanitarian Law Project. Cf. Agostini v. 

Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237 (1997) (noting that lower courts 

should not conclude that cases overrule precedent by 

implication). 

On the merits of MASF’s claim that section 108.13 is 

void for vagueness, we begin with the “basic principle of due 

process that an enactment is void for vagueness if its 

prohibitions are not clearly defined.” Grayned v. City of 

Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108 (1972). A statute authorizes an 

impermissible degree of enforcement discretion—and is 

therefore void for vagueness—where it fails to “set 

reasonably clear guidelines for law enforcement officials and 

triers of fact in order to prevent ‘arbitrary and discriminatory 

enforcement.’” Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 573 (1974) 

(quoting Grayned, 408 U.S. at 108). “When speech is 

involved,” the Supreme Court has cautioned, “rigorous 

adherence” to the requirement of a reasonable degree of 

clarity “is necessary to ensure that ambiguity does not chill 

protected speech.” Fox, 132 S. Ct. at 2317. 

Section 108.13 sets reasonably clear guidelines for law 

enforcement officers to determine whether a sign is event 

related, and therefore is not unconstitutionally vague. The 

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regulation defines an “event” as “an occurrence, happening, 

activity or series of activities, specific to an identifiable time 

and place, if referenced on the poster itself or reasonably 

determined from all circumstances by the inspector.” D.C.

MUN. REGS. tit. 24, § 108.13. Section 108.13 does not give 

enforcement officials so little guidance as to permit them to 

“act in an arbitrary or discriminatory way.” Fox, 132 S. Ct. at 

2317. In any system that relies on the administration of laws 

of general applicability in many different circumstances, some 

degree of ambiguity is all but inevitable. And, indeed, there is 

some evidence in this record that section 108.13 is susceptible 

of inconsistent application. “What renders a statute vague,” 

however, “is not the possibility that it will sometimes be 

difficult to determine whether the incriminating fact it 

establishes has been proved; but rather the indeterminacy of 

precisely what that fact is.” Williams, 553 U.S. at 306. Here, 

the fact targeted by the “event-related” limitation is clear: To 

relate to an “event,” a sign must relate to “an occurrence, 

happening, activity or series of activities, specific to an 

identifiable time and place.” That is not a vague standard. 

Those laws that courts have held to be constitutionally 

infirm for vagueness gave significantly less guidance to 

enforcement agents than does 108.13’s definition of an eventrelated sign. In Kolender, for example, a statute requiring a 

suspect to present “credible and reliable” identification gave 

police impermissibly open-ended enforcement discretion. 

Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 358-60 (1983). That 

statute “contain[ed] no standard for determining” how to meet 

the highly subjective “credible and reliable” requirement. Id. 

at 358. In Niemotko v. Maryland, too, no standard or 

guideline whatsoever cabined the Park Commissioner’s and 

the City Council’s discretion whether to grant a permit to hold 

a demonstration in the city park; officers were empowered to 

rely on nothing more than their own inclinations regarding 

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32 

each permit request. 340 U.S. 268, 271-72 (1951); see also, 

e.g., Armstrong v. D.C. Pub. Library, 154 F. Supp. 2d 67, 81-

82 (D.D.C. 2001) (striking for vagueness a regulation 

prohibiting “objectionable” appearance in a library). The 

District of Columbia’s criteria for defining an “event-related” 

lamppost sign, in contrast, adequately specify that the postevent time limitation applies to signs announcing an event or 

series of events of the type that occur at a specified time and 

place. 

MASF sees impermissible leeway in section 108.13’s 

explicit recognition of the enforcement officer’s authority to 

refer to “all circumstances” to determine whether a poster is 

event related. See D.C. MUN. REGS. tit. 24, § 108.13. In 

particular, section 108.13 directs enforcement officers to 

consider not only the poster itself, but to use their common 

sense and background knowledge to determine whether, in 

context, a poster in fact relates to “an occurrence, happening, 

activity or series of activities, specific to an identifiable time 

and place.” Thus, the event-relatedness of even a terse sign 

announcing a renowned local athletic event, a seasonal charity 

event, or a candidate for election could be determined to be 

event related in part based on circumstances apart from the 

poster itself. Nothing about such an inquiry renders the law 

vague. To the extent enforcement agents draw on 

surrounding circumstances to unreasonably infer that a sign is 

event related in accordance with the District’s rule, the eventrelatedness restriction would not apply. See D.C. MUN. REGS. 

tit. 24, § 108.13. So long as their inferences are reasonable, 

however, the rule’s open-endedness about the evidence that 

may be used to meet that standard does not convert its 

otherwise clear limitation into an impermissibly vague one. 

MASF highlights deposition testimony from the 

District’s inspectors that, it argues, shows the unconstrained 

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discretion section 108.13 affords the police inspectors. 

Inspectors confirmed that they had some leeway to assess 

event-relatedness, see ANSWER IV, 905 F. Supp. 2d at 347 & 

n.10, and were not unanimous as to whether a 2012 poster 

stating simply “GRAHAM!” pertained to the reelection 

campaign of City Council member Jim Graham and so was 

event-related. MASF also highlights testimony of Inspectors 

who had difficulty deciding the time limitation applicable to 

posters listing multiple events with different dates. But the 

most that evidence shows is that section 108.13 might be 

misapplied in certain cases. It does not show that section 

108.13 lacks criteria to cabin enforcement discretion. 

As the Supreme Court explained in the analogous context 

of a facial First Amendment challenge to a licensing scheme, 

“the success of a facial challenge on the grounds that an 

ordinance delegates overly broad discretion to the 

decisionmaker rests not on whether the administrator has 

exercised his discretion [unlawfully], but whether there is 

anything in the ordinance preventing him from doing so.” 

Forsyth Cty, 505 U.S. at 133 n.10. The District’s regulation 

guards against the unlawful exercise of discretion by 

delimiting what qualifies as an event: “an occurrence, 

happening, activity or series of activities, specific to an 

identifiable time and place.” D.C. MUN. REGS. tit. 24, 

§ 108.13. Ostensible vagueness about “whether the 

incriminating fact . . . has been proved” is not vagueness at 

all. Williams, 553 U.S. at 306. We accordingly hold that 

section 108.13 is not void for vagueness. 

D. The District Court Correctly Dismissed the 

Organizations’ Other Claims 

We next consider the organizations’ cross-appeal. They 

appeal from the district court’s 2011 dismissal of ANSWER’s 

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34 

claim that the District retaliated against it in violation of the 

First Amendment by citing as violations posters that were 

lawful under the regulation. ANSWER III, 798 F. Supp. 2d at 

153-55. They also appeal the court’s dismissal of MASF’s 

claim that the District’s regulation imposes a system of “strict 

liability” in violation of the First Amendment. Id. at 152-53. 

We review de novo the district court’s decision under Rule 

12(b)(6) to dismiss those claims, see English v. District of 

Columbia, 717 F.3d 968, 971 (D.C. Cir. 2013), and we affirm. 

1. ANSWER Fails to State a § 1983 Claim. In its 

complaint, ANSWER alleged that the District’s issuance of 

ninety-nine notices of violation against it had been “in bad 

faith and for the purpose of harassment.” Supplemental 

Complaint ¶¶ 42-43, ANSWER III, 798 F. Supp. 2d 134 (No. 

07-1495). The district court found that ANSWER had 

plausibly pled a constitutional violation, but dismissed the 

complaint for failure to allege that a custom or policy of the 

District had caused that violation. ANSWER III, 798 F. Supp. 

2d at 154-55. 

Section 1983 “give[s] a remedy to parties deprived of 

constitutional rights, privileges and immunities by an 

official’s abuse of his position.” Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 

167, 172 (1961) overruled on other grounds by Monell v. 

Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). 

Both states and cities can be sued under section 1983, Monell, 

436 U.S. at 663, 690, and for that purpose the District of 

Columbia is treated as a city, Jones v. Horne, 634 F.3d 588, 

600 (D.C. Cir. 2011). The District may be liable under 

section 1983, but only to the extent permitted under Monell—

i.e., only based on action that “implements or executes a 

policy statement, ordinance, regulation, or decision officially 

adopted and promulgated by that body’s officers” or for harm 

“visited pursuant to governmental ‘custom’ even though such 

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custom has not received formal approval.” Monell, 436 U.S. 

at 690-91. Under Monell, “a municipality cannot be held 

liable solely because it employs a tortfeasor—or, in other 

words, a municipality cannot be held liable under § 1983 on a 

respondeat superior theory.” Id. at 691. The “touchstone of” 

a section 1983 claim against a municipality is that “official 

policy is responsible for a deprivation of rights protected by 

the Constitution.” Id. at 690. That is, the alleged policy or 

custom must have “caused the violation.” Warren v. District 

of Columbia, 353 F.3d 36, 38 (D.C. Cir. 2004). 

ANSWER has not alleged that a custom or policy lay 

behind the notices of violation the District issued to it. On 

appeal, ANSWER argues that “the 99 enforcement actions 

were sufficiently pervasive and numerous to constitute a 

custom.” Organizations’ Br. 67. A section 1983 plaintiff 

may establish causation in several ways, but ANSWER has 

not contended that any District custom or policy was “the 

moving force of the constitutional violation.” Jones, 634 F.3d 

at 601. Nor has ANSWER sought to show causation based on 

a failure to train or “deliberate indifference.” See Baker v. 

District of Columbia, 326 F.3d 1302, 1306 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 

It makes no case that a policymaker knowingly ignored the 

alleged pattern of retaliatory enforcement. See Jones, 634 

F.3d at 601. ANSWER does not even identify by name or 

title any policy maker who knew of the enforcement actions 

the District took against it. The closest ANSWER comes to 

claiming a role for a policymaking official is its discussion of 

the District’s Department of Public Works’ General Counsel’s 

voluntary dismissal of the enforcement actions against 

ANSWER. But at most that shows a policymaker’s 

involvement in curbing allegedly unconstitutional 

enforcement. 

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The district court was correct, then, to dismiss 

ANSWER’s claims because the organization “never 

coherently allege[d] the existence of a broader municipal 

custom or practice that explains the issuance of those tickets” 

citing ANSWER for violating the sign posting rule. ANSWER 

III, 798 F. Supp. 2d at 154. 

2. The Regulation Does Not Impose “Strict Liability.” 

MASF contends that the District’s regulation imposes a “strict 

liability” regime in violation of the First Amendment. Strict 

liability in criminal statutes burdening speech is “generally 

disfavored.” United States v. Sheehan, 512 F.3d 621, 629 

(D.C. Cir. 2008). But we need not decide whether the 

imposition of civil fines on a strict-liability basis would be 

constitutional here because, as we construe the regulation, it 

does not impose strict liability.

Section 108.1 says, “No person shall affix a sign, 

advertisement, or poster to any public lamppost or 

appurtenances of a lamppost, except as provided in 

accordance with this section.” D.C. MUN. REGS. tit. 24, 

§ 108.1. MASF asserts in its complaint that the District 

“imposes strict liability for violation of these regulations upon 

persons or groups whose name or address is identified in a 

poster even if the person/group did not produce the poster.” 

First Am. Compl. ¶ 25, ANSWER I, 570 F. Supp. 2d 72 

(No. 07-1495); see id. ¶¶ 25-32. By “strict liability,” MASF 

seems to mean something closer to “vicarious liability”—that 

is, holding one party liable for the actions of another. See 

generally Liability, Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). 

Section 108.1 by its terms provides that no person may 

“affix” an offending sign to a lamppost. On its face, 

therefore, section 108.1 does not impose liability on anyone 

other than the person who “affixes” the sign to the lamppost. 

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The District in defending the rule assures us that it makes “a 

person liable only if that person is responsible for the 

unlawfully posted sign because, for example, he or she 

directed or encouraged the posting or his or her employee or 

agent posted it.” Gov’t Reply Br. at 39. 

MASF invokes Schneider v. New Jersey, 308 U.S. 147 

(1939), in which the Supreme Court held that a municipal 

ordinance imposing liability on the distributors of pamphlets 

for the litter left by the recipients of the pamphlets was 

unnecessarily burdensome on the speech rights of the 

pamphleteers. Id. at 162. The Schneider Court held that 

imposing liability on the distributor of the pamphlets could 

not be justified by the cities’ interest in preventing litter 

because the cities had an obvious alternative method to 

prevent litter: They could impose liability on “those who 

actually throw papers on the streets.” Id. 

But MASF gives us no reason to think that an 

organization would be held liable under section 108.1 if it did 

not “affix” a sign, but rather had its sign affixed by someone 

else acting without its authority who then failed timely to 

remove it. Nor has MASF raised a material question of fact 

as to whether the District has enforced the regulation to 

impose the type of strict or vicarious liability of which the 

Schneider Court disapproved. In light of the District of 

Columbia’s binding assurances and the lack of record 

evidence to the contrary, we do not read section 108.1 to 

impose strict or vicarious liability, and so affirm the district 

court’s decision to dismiss MASF’s strict-liability claim. 

E. Discovery Sanctions are Vacated 

Finally, we address the discovery sanctions the district 

court imposed against the District of Columbia under Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 16(f). We review the district court’s 

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award of sanctions for an abuse of discretion, see Perkinson v. 

Gilbert/Robinson, Inc., 821 F.2d 686, 689 (D.C. Cir. 1987), 

and vacate it. 

Rule 16(f)(2) gives courts a tool to enforce compliance 

with its scheduling orders. That rule directs that a court, 

“[i]nstead of or in addition to any other sanction, . . . must 

order the party, its attorney, or both to pay the reasonable 

expenses—including attorney’s fees—incurred because of 

any noncompliance with this rule, unless the noncompliance 

was substantially justified or other circumstances make an 

award of expenses unjust.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(f)(2). But a 

court may award sanctions under Rule 16(f) only where a 

party violates an unambiguous order. See Ashlodge, Ltd. v. 

Hauser, 163 F.3d 681, 684 (2d Cir. 1998), overruled on other 

grounds, as stated in New Pac. Overseas Grp. (U.S.A.) Inc. v. 

Excal Int’l Dev. Corp., 272 F.3d 667, 669 (2d Cir. 2001) (“To 

sustain sanctions under Rule 16(f), an order must be 

unambiguous . . . .”); cf. United States v. Day, 524 F.3d 1361, 

1372 (D.C. Cir. 2008). The order that the District allegedly 

violated here was ambiguous. 

The court’s scheduling order authorized MASF to take 

discovery but was silent as to the District. Before the court 

issued the order, the District and MASF had submitted a joint 

status report. The joint report explained that the District 

believed discovery was “unnecessary here, as the remaining 

facial vagueness challenge presents a purely legal question.” 

J.A. at 97. MASF, however, proposed that the court allow it 

to propound ten interrogatories, ten requests for production, 

fifteen requests for admission, and allow it to take six 

depositions. In response to MASF’s suggestion, the District 

suggested the court allow MASF ten interrogatories, five 

requests for production, and one deposition. Neither party 

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addressed the scope of District’s anticipated discovery in the 

event that the court imposed discovery constraints on MASF. 

MASF and the District each submitted a proposed 

scheduling order: The District’s order contemplated that 

“each party may not propound more than ten (10) 

interrogatories (including sub-parts) and five (5) requests for 

production of documents, and may not take more than one (1) 

deposition.” J.A. at 103. That is, the District’s proposed 

order tracked the limited discovery it had suggested in the 

Joint Status Report, contemplating that the limits would apply 

equally to both parties. MASF’s proposed order suggested 

less restrictive limits on its own discovery, and did not specify 

whether or to what extent the District’s discovery would be 

restricted. With some stylistic modifications, the court 

adopted MASF’s proposed order, stating that “plaintiff is 

authorized to propound not more than” the specified numbers 

of interrogatories, requests for production, requests for 

admission, and deposition notices; the order made no mention 

of any discovery restriction on the District of Columbia. 

The District sent eleven interrogatories and three requests 

for production to MASF and ANSWER. After plaintiffs’ 

counsel objected, the District withdrew six of its 

interrogatories but insisted on its right to conduct discovery. 

MASF then moved for a protective order and sanctions. The 

court granted the motion. 

We acknowledge the district courts’ prerogative to 

sanction parties for noncompliance with their orders, but we 

must vacate the sanctions here because the underlying order 

was ambiguous as to whether it limited the District’s 

discovery rights. It expressly lowered the default caps in the 

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure only as to the plaintiffs. The 

order referred more generally to the earliest date on which 

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“discovery requests may be served” and when “the parties” 

should file their dispositive motions. J.A. at 105. In context, 

the order could reasonably be read (a) to leave the District’s 

discovery rights as specified in the Federal Rules, (b) to 

implicitly subject it to the same lower caps the court applied 

to plaintiffs, or (c) to permit limited discovery to the plaintiffs 

while by negative implication barring any discovery 

whatsoever by the District. 

In the context of the dueling proposed orders—one 

equally limiting both parties and the other, which the court 

accepted, speaking only to plaintiffs—the court’s order could 

reasonably be read to constrain only the plaintiffs. Such onesided treatment seems sensible enough given that the District, 

which as defendant did not bear the burden of proof, was 

unlikely to need extensive discovery in any event. That same 

reasoning might, alternatively, support reading the order as 

setting limits equally applicable to both parties, given that the 

District had urged the court to proceed without any discovery 

and presumably was willing to work within any constraints it 

could persuade the court to impose. Alternatively, framed as 

it was affirmatively to “authorize” the plaintiffs, and only 

plaintiffs, to take the specified discovery, and issuing against 

the backdrop of the District’s initial argument against any 

discovery for either party, the order might be read—as the 

court evidently intended—to preclude the District from taking 

any discovery. 

There are, however, strong background principles that cut 

against the district court’s intended reading. Under Rule 26, a 

party may take discovery “regarding any nonprivileged matter 

that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and 

proportional to the needs of the case.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 

26(b)(1). Critically, a party has that prerogative without the 

order of a court. A court order may “otherwise limit[]” a 

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party’s discovery right, but a court’s affirmative permission is 

not a prerequisite to the taking of discovery. Id. Given the 

general discovery authorizations in the Federal Rules of Civil 

Procedure, which are not contingent on court orders granting 

permission, the district court’s scheduling order was 

ambiguous. Sanctions for the District’s service of discovery 

requests were therefore unwarranted, and are vacated. 

 

* * * 

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s 

grant of summary judgment to MASF on its facial First 

Amendment and due process challenges to the District of 

Columbia’s regulation and remand for the district court to 

enter summary judgment for the District. We affirm the 

court’s decision to dismiss ANSWER’s claim for damages 

and MASF’s claim alleging an impermissible strict liability 

regime. Finally, we vacate the court’s award of sanctions. 

So ordered. 

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