Opinion ID: 76557
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Constitutionality of the Indemnification Provision

Text: 21 The Augusta-Richmond Ordinance also requires permit applicants to indemnify the County for damages arising from a planned protest or demonstration: 22 [T]he applicant shall provide an indemnification and hold harmless agreement in favor of Augusta, Georgia and its elected officials, the Augusta-Richmond County Commission, the Sheriff of Richmond County, and their officers, agents and employees in a form satisfactory to the attorney for Augusta, Georgia. 23 § 3-4-11(a)(3). Burk argues that this provision grants the county attorney excessive discretion, imports content-based criteria into the permitting process, and is overbroad and chills speech. We agree that it grants excessive discretion and therefore decline to reach Burk's other challenges to the provision. 24 Even a facially content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation may not vest public officials with unbridled discretion over permitting decisions. See Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 150-51, 89 S.Ct. 935, 938-39, 22 L.Ed.2d 162 (1969); Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123, 130-31, 112 S.Ct. 2395, 2401-02, 120 L.Ed.2d 101 (1992). Excessive discretion over permitting decisions is constitutionally suspect because it creates the opportunity for undetectable censorship and signals a lack of narrow tailoring. See id. ; Lady J. Lingerie, Inc. v. City of Jacksonville, 176 F.3d 1358, 1362 (11th Cir.1999); Miami Herald Pub. Co. v. City of Hallandale, 734 F.2d 666, 675 (11th Cir.1984). Therefore, time, place, and manner regulations must contain narrowly drawn, reasonable and definite standards, Thomas, 534 U.S. at 324, 122 S.Ct. at 781, to guide the official's decision and render it subject to effective judicial review, id. at 323, 122 S.Ct. at 780. 25 We readily conclude that the indemnification provision in the Augusta-Richmond Ordinance fails to provide adequate standards. It requires an indemnification agreement in a form satisfactory to the attorney for Augusta, Georgia, § 3-4-11(a)(3), and gives no guidance regarding what should be considered satisfactory. Thus, the requirement is standardless and leaves acceptance or rejection of indemnification agreements to the whim of the administrator. Thomas, 534 U.S. at 324, 122 S.Ct. at 781 (citing Forsyth County, 505 U.S. at 133, 112 S.Ct. at 2403). 26 The County has virtually conceded as much by arguing only that the requirement has been administered with flexibility and permissiveness. It argues that the county attorney has approved a variety of indemnification agreements, and no application has ever been denied for failure to include an agreement. The County also frames this as a well-established practice, see, e.g., City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., 486 U.S. 750, 770, 108 S.Ct. 2138, 2151, 100 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988) (The doctrine requires that the limits [on official discretion] the city claims are implicit in its law be made explicit by textual incorporation, binding judicial or administrative construction, or well-established practice.), apparently asserting that a practice of permissiveness and flexibility somehow restrains the attorney's discretion. 27 We cannot conclude on this record that the County has demonstrated a well-established practice, id., that subjects the county attorney's discretion to narrowly drawn, reasonable and definite standards, Thomas, 534 U.S. at 324, 122 S.Ct. at 781. The Sheriff's affidavit asserts that to my knowledge and recollection, the Sheriff's Office has never denied a permit application for any reason related to the failure to give an indemnification and hold harmless agreement or the particular form of said agreement, which was provided by an applicant. In fact, I cannot recall any application for a permit under § 3-4-11 as amended or its predecessor being denied completely for any reason. Even if we assume arguendo that a well-established practice of not requiring an indemnity could nullify the clear statutory mandate that the applicant shall provide an indemnification, § 3-4-11(a)(3), we know that the instant ordinance has virtually no history, having been enacted only in the month before the instant applications. 15 Moreover, we also know that the applicants during this period were also given a sample form of indemnification agreement, which belies a well-established practice of non-enforcement. The Supreme Court in Lakewood struck a permitting ordinance as facially unconstitutional in a similar pre-enforcement challenge. 486 U.S. at 770, n. 11, 108 S.Ct. at 2151 n. 11. See also Forsyth County, 505 U.S. at 129-33, 112 S.Ct. at 2400-03 (striking an ordinance as facially unconstitutional because of overly broad discretion with respect to the fee to cover expenses associated with the permit, and noting in footnote 10 that it was irrelevant to the facial challenge that the fee charged in the instant situation was content-neutral, and that the pervasive threat inherent in its very existence... constitutes the danger to freedom of discussion.). 28 Finally, the County cites the district court's approval of permit fees in the case that ultimately became Thomas in the Supreme Court. That case is inapposite. The provision at issue there contained a precise fee schedule tied to the type of event and number of expected attendees, and an indemnification provision triggered by the number of people expected at the event. It left officials little, if any, discretion to make the type of content-based determinations that [the plaintiff] and the [Supreme] Court in Forsyth are concerned about. See MacDonald v. Chicago Park Dist., 1999 WL 203288 , 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5692 -18 (N.D.Ill.1999). Thus, it was wholly unlike the indemnification provision at issue here. 29 Because we find the indemnification provision unconstitutional in its grant of excessive discretion to the county attorney, we decline to reach Burk's other arguments challenging that provision.