Opinion ID: 3026062
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Picketing means the practice of

Text: standing, marching, or patrolling by one or more -2- persons inside of, in front, or about any premises for the purpose of persuading an occupant of such premises or to protest some action, attitude or belief. 10-1202. Picketing of dwellings prohibited. --No person shall engage in picketing the dwelling of any individual in the City of Fargo. .... After the picketers refused to leave the scene, the Fargo police arrested the picketers and charged them with violating the ordinance. The Fargo police transported the plaintiffs to the Cass County Jail and held them overnight. The Fargo police detained plaintiff Uchtman, a minor at the time of her arrest, for only a few hours and released her to the custody of her parents. Fargo filed charges against plaintiffs Veneklase, Mehl, Larson and Emmel for violating the residential picketing ordinance. On February 18, 1992, Cass County Judge Frank L. Racek dismissed the charges against plaintiffs, deciding that the ordinance was constitutional on its face but unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiffs on October 10, 1991. Plaintiffs subsequently filed this action, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, against Fargo, Officer David Todd, Officer Jim Schalesky, Lieutenant Jon Holman, and Sergeant Wayne Jorgenson seeking redress for their arrest and incarceration. On February 17, 1995, a Magistrate Judge denied the individual police officers' claim of qualified immunity. The district court concluded that the officers' conduct was not objectively reasonable in light of clearly established law. The district court also concluded that Fargo failed to train its officers properly and, as a result, was deliberately indifferent to the rights of the picketers and liable for damages as a matter of law. Veneklase v. City of Fargo, 904 F.Supp. 1038, 1058 (D.N.D. 1995). In addition, the district court concluded that the ordinance did not violate the constitution on its face because the ordinance constituted a valid content-neutral regulation. Id. -3- at 1044-48. Fargo and the police officers appealed to this court from the interlocutory order. We reversed the denial of qualified immunity and held that the interlocutory appeal on the issue of municipal liability was not properly before the court. Veneklase v. City of Fargo, 78 F.3d 1264, 1270 (8th Cir. 1996) (Veneklase I). We then remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings against Fargo. Id. On April 10, 1997, the district court determined that Fargo was liable as a matter of law and again granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. The district court concluded that the ordinance was unconstitutional as a content-based restriction on free speech. The district court then referred the issue of damages to a jury for a trial. That trial, held in August 1997, resulted in damages against Fargo in favor of the five plaintiffs . . . . Id. at 1113-14 (footnotes omitted). The panel considered the case twice. Initially, it reversed in an opinion filed August 30, 1999. On the plaintiffs' petition for rehearing, the panel vacated its initial opinion and granted a rehearing. It did so to give the plaintiffs an opportunity to address further the panel's determination that the 1985 Fargo ordinance passed the test of content neutrality. See Veneklase II, 200 F.3d at 1111, n. As noted, the award of damages by the district court rested on its determination that the enforcement of the Fargo ordinance in question violated the plaintiffs' constitutional rights as a content-based restriction of free speech. The panel opinion rejected that ruling, determining that the 1985 Fargo ordinance in question passed the test of content neutrality and was not facially unconstitutional, relying for its ruling on the United States Supreme Court case of -4- Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474 (1988). The panel also rejected other constitutional challenges to the arrests. Plaintiffs-appellees petitioned for a rehearing en banc, asserting error in the panel's determination of content neutrality and disregard by the panel of an earlier Eighth Circuit decision relating to Fargo's amended 1993 residential picketing ordinance which maintained that similar, crucial language defining residential picketing was not content neutral. That earlier case cited by plaintiffs is Kirkeby v. Furness, 92 F.3d 655 (8th Cir. 1996) (Kirkeby II). The petition for rehearing did not raise as a basis for en banc consideration the issue of the liability of the City of Fargo for the unconstitutional enforcement of the ordinance. However, that ground exists in plaintiffs' initial briefs as an alternate ground for affirmance by the court. We granted a rehearing en banc on February 16, 2000, and heard oral argument on April 11, 2000. On September 7, 2000, the court vacated the submission in order to permit Judge Kermit E. Bye to participate. Judge Bye joined the court on April 22, 2000, after the initial en banc submission. Pursuant to the Eighth Circuit's established procedures, an active judge joining the court after an en banc submission may participate in pending en banc cases. By an order dated September 7, 2000, the court vacated the prior en banc submission of April 11, directed resubmission to the en banc court without further oral argument and on the basis of the original and supplemental briefs. The order also requested additional simultaneous briefs by the parties on the following questions: -5- 1. Does the decision in Hill v. Colorado, 120 S.Ct. 2480 (2000), have any bearing on the question of the invalidity, facial or asapplied, of the 1985 Fargo ordinance at issue in this case. 2. Whether the holding of Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474 (1988), limits the 1985 ordinance's scope of picketing in front of only one house, or [w]hether protestors may, consistent with the Frisby holding, include houses adjacent to the targeted dwelling on the picketing route. See Veneklase v. City of Fargo, 78 F.3d 1264, 1268 (8th Cir. 1996). 8th Cir. Order, Sept. 7, 2000. After careful review, we determine the plaintiffs' claim of facial unconstitutionality of the ordinance must be rejected. The ordinance in question is content neutral, and not void for vagueness or overbreadth. Further, based on the record of this case, applicable Supreme Court case law, the opinion of this court in the prior appeal (Veneklase I, 78 F.3d at 1269), and other Eighth Circuit precedents foreclose any affirmance on the alternative grounds argued by plaintiffs-appellees. We essentially adopt the panel opinion in Veneklase II, 200 F.3d 1111, and expand its reasoning in light of the recently decided case of Hill v. Colorado, 120 S. Ct. 2480 (2000), by the United States Supreme Court. The judgment of the district court, granting the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment against the City and entering an order allowing damages and attorney's fees and costs against the City, will therefore be reversed. -6-