Opinion ID: 3028399
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rappa’s Reach

Text: The Appellants forcefully argue that the context-specific view we adopted in Rappa only applies to ordinances regulating signs on public property. They support this argument in two ways. First, they discuss the four primary Supreme Court “sign” cases and attempt to create a split between those involving bans on private and public property. Second, they contend that Rappa’s reasoning applies only to ordinances regulating public property. Turning to the Supreme Court cases on point, the Appellants first address City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43 (1994), in which the Supreme Court struck down as overbroad “Ladue’s near-total prohibition of residential signs.” Id. at 53. While this was a prohibition that applied to residential signs and was struck down, it was not analyzed under a content-based framework, as the Appellants would like us to do here. Rather, the Gilleo Court explicitly elected to “assume, arguendo, the validity of the City’s submission that the various exemptions are free of impermissible content or viewpoint discrimination.” Id. at 53. In other words, the Supreme Court in Gilleo did not find, 16 as the Appellants urge us to do here, that the regulation was impermissibly content-based because it applied to private property. Rather, viewing it under a content-neutral framework, the Court found that it swept in too much protected speech, such as the war protest sign at issue. The only discussion of the public-private property distinction was in balancing the interests – a step that comes after determining under which framework the statute will be viewed.4 Similarly, the Appellants urge us to find support for their view in Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Township of Willingboro, 431 U.S. 85 (1977), which they describe simply as a case refusing to allow commercial speech to be banned on private property. There, the Supreme Court struck down a municipal ordinance banning real estate signs, which the Township had enacted to promote “stable, racially integrated housing.” Id. at 94. In doing so, the Court did not apply a different framework because the ordinance applied to private property. Rather, the Supreme Court analyzed the law under the general framework applicable to commercial speech and simply found “that respondents failed to establish that this ordinance is needed to assure that Willingboro remains an integrated community.” Id. at 95. Thus, we do not read Linmark as suggesting that a 4 For example, in Gilleo, the Court discussed the importance of residential signs when considering whether there was any adequate substitute for the prohibited communication, not in determining the applicable framework. Specifically, the Court noted that “[r]esidential signs are an unusually cheap and convenient form of communication” that “may have no practical substitute.” 512 U.S. at 57. 17 different framework is required when considering the constitutionality of an ordinance that applies to private, rather than public, property. Next, the Appellants turn to Members of the City Council of the City of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789 (1984), where the Supreme Court upheld a content-neutral ordinance that banned the posting of all signs on public property. Id. at 817. Like Gilleo and Linmark, the Court in Vincent touched on the distinction between ordinances that apply only to public property and those that reach private property as well. But also like those cases, this discussion was not in relation to selecting a framework. Rather, it was in applying the chosen framework. Specifically, in discussing the tailoring of the ordinance at issue, the Vincent Court observed that “the validity of the esthetic interest in the elimination of signs on public property is not compromised by failing to extend the ban to private property. The private citizen’s interest in controlling the use of his own property justifies the disparate treatment.” Id. at 811. Finally, the Appellants look to Metromedia, the final of the four Supreme Court cases on point, and to our analysis in Rappa to support their public-private distinction. The immediately troubling aspect of this argument is that neither the scheme in Metromedia nor the scheme in Rappa applied exclusively to public or private property. Both, for example, contained exceptions for signs advertising the goods or services offered on the property where the sign is displayed. Rappa, 18 F.3d at 1051; Metromedia, 453 U.S. at 510-11. Certainly this is not referring to public property. Indeed, we specifically noted 18 in Rappa that “the statutes regulate a private party’s speech on his or her own property.” 18 F.3d at 1071. In addition, nowhere in our discussion of the context-specific framework laid out in Rappa do we mention any distinction between public and private property. As in all of the discussed cases, any mention of the special nature of private property comes when weighing the interests at stake, not when selecting an analytical framework. In sum, while several of these cases may mention the important interests at stake when regulating signs on private property, none of them suggest that regulations that apply to private versus public property should be subjected to a different standard. To the extent that the issue of private property came into play, it was during the balancing of interests. Thus, there is no basis for limiting Rappa’s context-specific framework to ordinances regulating signs on public property, and we will apply our rule from that case where it is relevant here.