Case Name: CENTRAL ADVERTISING COMPANY v. CITY OF ANN ARBOR
Court: Michigan Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1974-05-21
Citations: 391 Mich. 533
Docket Number: No. 9; Docket Nos. 54,310-54,313, 54,316
Parties: CENTRAL ADVERTISING COMPANY v CITY OF ANN ARBOR
Judges: T. M. Kavanagh, C. J., and T. G. Kavanagh and Williams, JJ., concurred with Levin, J.
Reporter: Michigan Reports
Volume: 391
Pages: 533–554

Head Matter:
CENTRAL ADVERTISING COMPANY v CITY OF ANN ARBOR
.Opinion op the Court
1. Municipal Corporations — Sign Ordinance — Billboards—Home-Rule Act — City Charter — City Council.
A home-rule city council which through the interplay of diverse restrictions in the city’s sign ordinance effectively outlawed billboards altogether in the guise of 'regulation exceeded its authority under the home-rule act and the city’s charter because neither the act nor the charter authorizes the council to eliminate billboards (MCLA 117.4i[5]; Ann Arbor Charter, §3.1[2][f]).
2. Municipal Corporations — Home-Rule City — Sign Ordinance— Constitutional Law — Evidence—Appeal and Error — Fact-Finding — Record.
The Michigan Supreme Court should defer decision as to the constitutionality of a home-rule city’s sign ordinance as applied to 177 sign plaintiffs where it is presented with a record concerning a number of issues undifferentiated by fact-finding and with briefs which make no reference to evidence which would support and counter specific findings, because it should not be without the guidance of adversary presentation directed to the record and would run the risk of overlooking a fact lurking in the record or, although not of record, known to, and recognized by, counsel; the Court should require specific fact-finding, plaintiff by plaintiff, and briefing focused on the evidentiary support for such findings before it grapples with the constitutionality of the sign restrictions in the ordinance.
Dissenting Opinion
Swainson and M. S. Coleman, JJ.
3. Municipal Corporations — Sign Ordinance — Nonconforming Signs — Amortization—Compensation—Fair Market Value— Courts.
Provisions of a city’s sign ordinance granting the owner of a nonconforming sign the option of amortization by maintaining the sign for designated periods of time based upon the cost of the sign or to have a hearing before the sign board of appeals to determine the amount "which fairly compensates for the actual dollar cost of alteration of the sign or signs”, in order to relocate the sign or bring the sign into conformity with the requirements of the ordinance which amount may in no event exceed the "then fair market depreciated value of each said sign”, is invalid as to amortization of nonconforming uses because a city cannot destroy nonconforming uses by time limitation and the compensation provision is likewise invalid to the extent it is construed a limit upon the judicial function of determining just compensation, which is the equivalent of fair market value (Ann Arbor City Code § 5.518).
Reference for Points in Headnotes
56 Am Jur 2d, Municipal Corporations, Counties, and Other Political Subdivisions §§ 125-138.
4. Municipal Corporations — City Charter — Licenses—Billboards —Signs—Police Power — Health—Safety—Morals—General Welfare.
Provisions of a city charter for licensing, regulating and limiting the number and location of billboards and advertising signs must be construed in relation to that integral attribute of sovereignty known as police power; such power has been delegated to cities by the home-rule act and exercise of this power must bear a reasonable relationship to the health, safety, morals or general welfare of the community (MCLA 117.3¡j]; Ann Arbor Charter, ch 3).
5. Municipal Corporations — Sign Ordinance — Police Power— Health — Safety—Morals—General Welfare.
Sign ordinance of a city is invalid ab initio where by its terms and in its application, the ordinance comprises an unreasonable exercise of police power, it results in arbitrary and capricious prohibitions where, as a matter of fact and law, plaintiffs established by a clear preponderance of factual and legal proofs by both expert and lay witnesses testimony that the ordinance bears no real and substantial relationship to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare of the citizens of the city (Ann Arbor City Code § 5.499 et seq.).
Appeal from Court of Appeals, Division 2, Quinn, P. J., and J. W. Fitzgerald and Van Valkenburg, JJ., reversing in part and affirming in part Washtenaw, Paul R. Mahinske, J.
Submitted September 6, 1973.
(No. 9
September Term 1973,
Docket Nos. 54,310-54,313, 54,316.)
Decided May 21, 1974.
Rehearing denied June 25,1974.
42 Mich App 59 reversed.
Complaints by Central Advertising Company and others to challenge the validity of an ordinance to regulate advertising signs. Ann Arbor Bank and others intervened as parties plaintiff. Judgment for plaintiffs. Defendant appealed to the Court of Appeals. Reversed in part, affirmed in part. Plaintiffs and defendant appeal. Cases consolidated.
Remanded to trial court for specific fact-finding.
Fraser, Trebilcock, Davis & Foster (by James A. Park and Robert W Stocker II), for plaintiff Central Advertising Agency.
Crippen, Dever, Urquhart & Cmejrek, for plaintiff Ann Arbor Implement Company.
Burke, Ryan, Rennell, Foster & Hood, for intervening plaintiffs Ann Arbor Bank and others.
Keyes, Creal & Hurbis, for plaintiff Shell Oil Company and others.
Jerold Lax, City Attorney, and R. Bruce Laid-law, Chief Assistant City Attorney, for defendant City of Ann Arbor.
Amicus Curiae: Bodman, Longley, Bogle, Armstrong & Dahling (by Theodore Souris and Harold M. Deason), for Eller Outdoor Advertising Company of Michigan.

Opinion:
Levin, J.
I
The trial judge found, and the record supports this finding, that the interplay of diverse restrictions in the Ann Arbor Sign Ordinance effectively outlaws billboards. In the guise of regulation, the City Council of Ann Arbor has proscribed billboards altogether.
The home-rule act authorizes a charter provision "[f]or licensing, regulating, restricting and limiting the number and locations of billboards within the city". MCLA 117.4i(5); MSA 5.2082(5).
The charter of the city authorizes "[licensing, regulating, and limiting the number and location of billboards and advertising signs".
Neither the home-rule act nor the charter of the city authorizes the council to eliminate billboards. In combination, the various restrictions, tantamount to a proscription of billboards, exceed the authority of the council under the home-rule act and charter.
II
The ordinance does not ban all signs — as distinguished from billboards — either in terms or in practical effect.
The 177 sign plaintiffs who joined in the complaints filed in these consolidated proceedings are affected differently by the multifarious sign limitations in the ordinance.
The trial judge's opinion does not contain particularized findings of fact. His findings were conclusory: "the Sign Ordinance is a transparent attempt to exclude billboards, and other forms of signs, from the entire City, in time, and not to exclude such merely from residential areas". While the record clearly supports this conclusion as to billboards, it is manifest that the ordinance, although it places innumerable restrictions on signs, does not ban them altogether.
The plaintiffs do not contend that all signs are proscribed presently or in time. They claim, rather, that certain provisions of the sign ordinance are unreasonable or unreasonable as applied to them. They rely on the "finding" just quoted and the following also copclusory "finding":
"[I]t is the opinion of this court, and the court finds as a matter of fact and law that the City of Ann Arbor Sign Ordinance (so called) is and was an unreasonable police power regulation of said City, is too general, too broad in its attempted application, confiscatory (under the De Mull case), zoning legislation in nature which did not comply in its enactment to statutory regulation and an unconstitutional violation of freedom of speech, press and religion."
The opinion of the trial court sweeps as broadly as the ordinance so roundly condemned. We are left to speculate what specific provisions of the sign ordinance — what sign restrictions — are "too general, too broad".
Our colleagues' opinion cites various examples of "unreasonable" provisions of the ordinance. These examples are not derived from findings of the trial judge — there are, to repeat, no specific findings. A few of the examples are mentioned in the brief of the billboard plaintiff, Central Advertising Company. Most of the examples are derived from the record without the benefit of adversary briefing in this Court.
The joint brief of the sign plaintiffs makes three arguments, one of which is adopted by our colleagues: "The Ann Arbor Sign Ordinance constitutes an unconstitutional exercise of the police power". In support, counsel argues that the ordinance is an "attempted wholesale proscription of certain types of signs". (Emphasis supplied.) No example is given other than a fleeting reference focusing on the amortization issue (see fn 2): "In the instant case, of course, for moving signs, such as Ann Arbor Bank's signs, there is only a 75 day amortization period and no compensation provision whatsoever is provided".
While some provisions of the sign ordinance may be unreasonable — e.g., outlawing moving signs, the one example cited in the brief of counsel — it is doubtful whether each and every sign restriction in the Ann Arbor Sign Ordinance can properly be said to be unreasonable or unreasonable as applied to 177 separate plaintiffs.
It is not apparent which of the 177 plaintiffs are adversely affected by the "unreasonable" provisions of the sign ordinance adverted to in our colleagues' opinion or how many might be similarly situated. Yet all 177 plaintiffs are to be granted relief, and not just the "offending" provisions of the ordinance but the entire ordinance is declared unreasonable and unconstitutional.
An appellate court may, indeed, properly make an independent search of the record. However, when an appellate court does so without the guidance of adversary presentation directed to the record it runs the risk of overlooking a fact lurkiifg in the record or, although not of record, known to, and recognized by, counsel. If the ordinance were not so complex and if there were not so many plaintiffs with seemingly different complaints, we might join our colleagues in an independent search of the record.
We have concluded, however, on the same principles that preclude us from attempting to decide this intricate litigation on the allegations of the complaint and the traverse in the answer., which preclude us from deciding an abstract, generalized controversy without supporting evidence, that we should defer decision in this case. We are presented with a record concerning a number of issues undifferentiated by fact-finding and with briefs which make no reference to evidence which would support and counter specific findings.
Before grappling with the constitutionality of the sign restrictions in this ordinance, *8 we should require specific fact-finding, plaintiff by plaintiff, and briefing focused on the evidentiary support for such findings.
We remand for specific fact-finding and direct report to us on the record already made, supplemented as the parties desire, and further briefiñg after such fact-finding. On receipt of that report and further briefs we can then appraise the reasonableness of the provisions of the sign ordinance in the context of the facts as they affect the individual sign plaintiffs.
T. M. Kavanagh, C. J., and T. G. Kavanagh and Williams, JJ., concurred with Levin, J.
Ann Arbor Charter, § 3.1(2)(f).
De Mull v City of Lowell, 368 Mich 242, 250; 118 NW2d 232 (1962).
This Court stated, "Whatever the law may be in other States, law stemming as it does from specific and variant statutory zoning enactments and judicial construction thereof, the fact remains that the cities of Michigan have not as yet been authorized, by requisite legislative act, to terminate nonconforming uses by ordinance of time limitation".
The Court of Appeals rejected the city's efforts to distinguish De Mull stating, "De Mull is controlling in its holding that amortization of nonconforming uses is improper". Central Advertising Co v Ann Arbor, 42 Mich App 59, 73; 201 NW2d 365 (1972).
The brief filed in behalf of the sign plaintiffs accepts the facts as stated by Central Advertising Company. Central Advertising's statement of facts focuses primarily on its principal concern — the billboard provisions of the ordinance.
The other two arguments are that Michigan law does not authorize amortization of nonconforming uses (see fn 2); and that the sign ordinance is in reality a zoning ordinance which was not enacted in a manner conforming to the requirements of the city and village zoning-enabling act. MCLA 125.584; MSA 5.2934. The reenactment of the ordinance as Chapter 61A in a manner conforming to those requirements appears to have mooted this latter issue in this action for a declaratory judgment.
Among the types of signs prohibited by § 5:504 of the sign ordinance are:
"(e) Any sign or sign structure which (a) is structurally unsafe, or (b) constitutes a hazard to safety or health by reason of inadequate maintenance, dilapidation or abandonment, or (c) is not kept in good repair, or (d) is capable of causing electrical shocks to persons likely to come in contact with it.
"(f) Any sign which, by reason of its size, location, content, coloring or manner of illumination, constitutes a traffic hazard or a detriment to traffic safety by obstructing the vision of drivers, or by obstructing, or detracting from the visibility of any traffic sign or control device on public streets and roads.
"(g) Any sign which obstructs free ingress to or egress from a required door, window, fire escape or other required exit way.
"(h) Signs which make use of words such as 'Stop', 'Look', 'Danger', or any other words, phrases, symbols or characters, in such a manner as to interfere with, mislead or confuse traffic.
"(k) Any sign now or hereafter existing which no longer advertises a bona fide business conducted, or a product sold."
The sign plaintiffs, except for intervenor John Lee Oldsmobile, Inc., do not appear to have availed themselves of an administrative remedy set forth in the ordinance by applying to the Sign Board of Appeals for a variance. John Lee Oldsmobile sought and was granted a variance and then withdrew from the action subsequent to the judgment of the trial court.
Relief obtained through the administrative process might render constitutional adjudication unnecessary or premature.