Opinion ID: 4417233
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: First Amendment and Due Process

Text: Paramount first argues that the Village’s ban on new billboard permits violates its First Amendment and substantive due-process rights. It seeks an order enjoining the Village from enforcing the ban and an award of damages for lost advertising revenue. We take the claim for injunctive relief first. The Village and Image Media argue Paramount’s standing evaporated when the Sodhi lease was cancelled. Because the cancellation arose after Paramount initiated this action, the issue is really one of mootness. A claim is moot “when the issues presented are no longer ‘live’ or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome.” Chafin v. Chafin, 568 U.S. 165, 172 (2013) (quotation marks omitted). After filing its complaint, Paramount lost its lease agreement and with it any property interest within the Village. So an injunction against the Village cannot help it. Regardless of 6 No. 17-1562 the Village’s ordinances, Paramount cannot build a billboard on the Sodhi property. Paramount forcefully contends that the Sodhis had no right to cancel the lease, but this argument is of no moment. If a breach occurred, Paramount would be almost certainly entitled to damages rather than a reinstatement of the lease. See Koehler v. Packer Grp., Inc., 53 N.E.3d 218, 245 (Ill. App. Ct. 2016) (“Illinois courts have consistently held that money damages are the appropriate remedy for breach of contract.”) (quotation marks omitted). The continued existence of the sign ban doesn’t affect this remedy. Likewise, Paramount’s claim that Image Media induced the alleged breach is misplaced. Regardless of the propriety of an opposing party’s actions, mootness is part of Article III’s “irreducible constitutional minimum.” Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). An “actual controversy must be extant at all stages of review.” Alvarez v. Smith, 558 U.S. 87, 92 (2009) (quotation marks omitted). Because Paramount lost its interest in the Sodhi property, its claim for injunctive relief is moot. The damages claim faces a statute-of-limitations problem. The parties largely agree that these claims borrow Illinois’s two-year limit for personal-injury actions. 1 See Johnson v. Winstead, 900 F.3d 428, 434 (7th Cir. 2018). Their dispute hinges on when Paramount’s claims accrued; federal law governs that question. Id. A claim accrues when “the constitutional violation is complete and the plaintiff has a present 1 Paramount briefly asserts that facial First Amendment challenges can never be time barred. Its argument is underdeveloped and bereft of any analysis. We do not address this theory. No. 17-1562 7 cause of action.” Id. In other words, a “cause of action accrues, and the statute of limitation commences to run, when the wrongful act or omission results in damages.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). Paramount’s claims are untimely under this general accrual rule. When the Village adopted the sign ban in February 2009, the claimed constitutional tort was complete. Paramount, which had a lease and IDOT permit, could not build its sign. And yet it waited until May 2013 to sue, well beyond Illinois’s two-year statute of limitations. Paramount cannot save its claims by bootstrapping them to the 2012 amendment. The amendment did not, as Paramount argues, repeal and reenact the ban. By its own terms, the amendment created an exemption only for village-owned property. It had nothing to do with Paramount’s injury. Paramount’s First Amendment and dueprocess claims accrued in 2009, so they are untimely.