Opinion ID: 2975823
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Underlying Jurisprudence

Text: “Just as the First Amendment does not guarantee the right to communicate one’s views at all times and places or in any manner . . . so it does not permit municipalities to regulate methods No. 06-3828 Midwest Media Property, et al. v. Symmes Twp., Ohio Page 17 of expression however, whenever and wherever they wish. Prime Media, 398 F.3d at 818 (citing Wheeler v. Comm’r of Highways, Commw. of Ky., 822 F.2d 586, 589 (6th Cir.1987)) (internal quotation marks omitted). In order to determine whether or not the municipal ordinances at issue impermissibly regulate speech in violation of the First Amendment, however, a court must first determine which level of scrutiny it should apply in weighing the Township’s interest in regulating speech against Plaintiffs’ interest in speaking. The courts give great deference to legislatures in most cases, generally deferring to legislative judgment so long as a law appears supported by some rational basis. See, e.g., Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U.S. 456, 464 (1981). When fundamental interests are limited by a legislative act, however, courts will apply the strictest level of scrutiny, and invalidate the law unless it is deemed necessary to serve a compelling government interest. See, e.g., Burson v. Freeman, 504 U.S. 191, 199-200 (1992). Finally, the Supreme Court has also recognized some interests which, while not constituting fundamental interests triggering strict scrutiny, still must be examined under a heightened level of review. See, e.g., McConnell, 504 U.S. at 108. Ordinarily, when the government seeks to regulate commercial speech which is neither misleading nor concerning illegal activity, this Court should apply an intermediate level of scrutiny in weighing the restriction. Under this intermediate scrutiny, the speech restriction will be upheld only if it 1) directly advances a substantial government interest; and 2) is not “more extensive than necessary to serve that interest.” Cent. Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp., 447 U.S. 557, 566 (1980); see also Edenfield v. Fane, 507 U.S. 761, 767 (1993) ( “[L]aws restricting commercial speech, unlike laws burdening other forms of protected expression, need only be tailored in a reasonable manner to serve a substantial state interest in order to survive First Amendment scrutiny.”). “Unlike rational-basis review, [intermediate scrutiny] does not permit us to supplant the precise interests put forward by the State with other suppositions.” Edenfield, 507 U.S. at 768. Rather, the burden rests with the Defendant to proffer the specific government interests which it deems sufficient to overcome intermediate scrutiny. Id. at 770-71. Under intermediate scrutiny, “the party seeking to regulate commercial speech, [has] the burden of affirmatively establishing that the ordinance” is constitutional with respect to all aspects of this test. Desert Outdoor Adver., Inc. v. City of Moreno Valley, 103 F.3d 814, 819 (9th Cir. 1996) (citing Bd. of Trs. of the State Univ. of N.Y., 492 U.S. at 480); see also Edenfield, 507 U.S. at 770771 (1993) (“It is well established that [t]he party seeking to uphold a restriction on commercial speech carries the burden of justifying it.” (quoting Bolger v. Youngs Drug Prod. Corp., 463 U.S. 60, 71 n.20 (1983)) (quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original)). “This burden is not satisfied by mere speculation or conjecture; rather, a governmental body seeking to sustain a restriction on commercial speech must demonstrate that the harms it recites are real and that its restriction will in fact alleviate them to a material degree.” Edenfield, 507 U.S. at 770-71. “Without this requirement, [Defendant] could with ease restrict commercial speech in the service of other objectives that could not themselves justify a burden on commercial expression.” Id. This framework was recently reaffirmed by this Court in our en banc decision in Pagan v. Fruchey. In Pagan, a commercial speech case that was decided by the same district court judge who decided the instant matter,4 this Court expressly held that a municipality must produce sufficient evidence to justify the restrictions on commercial speech imposed by an ordinance. 492 F.3d at 771. This Court found that “the evidence adduced by the [municipality] [was] insufficient to satisfy [its] burden” because more than “a conclusory articulation of government interests” is required under Supreme Court precedent. Id. at 772-73. This Court specifically noted that the district court cannot 4 Since the en banc Court recently decided Pagan, the district court did not have the benefit of Pagan when it was deciding the instant case. No. 06-3828 Midwest Media Property, et al. v. Symmes Twp., Ohio Page 18 apply a “deferential standard” or “place[ ] the burden on [Plaintiffs] to demonstrate the unconstitutionality of the ordinance.” Id. at 773. In Pagan, the municipality argued “that it would be difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to conduct studies and provide empirical evidence in support of” its zoning ordinance. Id. Nevertheless, this Court declined to “adopt a standard of ‘obviousness’ or ‘commonsense,’ under which [to] uphold a speech regulation in the absence of evidence of concrete harm,” and found that “the Supreme Court has made quite clear that” there is an “evidentiary requirement the state must meet under intermediate scrutiny.” Id. at 774. “[T]he standard established by the Supreme Court depends neither on obviousness nor common sense. [Supreme Court precedent] requires some evidence to establish that a speech regulation addresses actual harms with some basis in fact.” Id. (emphasis in original). As difficult as it may be for a law to survive this intermediate level of scrutiny, under certain circumstances, laws burdening commercial speech must survive an even stricter test. When a restriction on commercial or other speech engages in “content-based restriction,” the law “can stand only if it satisfies strict scrutiny.” United States v. Playboy Entm’t Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 813 (2000); see also Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. Fed. Commc’ns Comm’n, 512 U.S. 622, 635 (1994) (noting that a regulation may “warrant strict scrutiny as a content-based regulation.”). Under strict scrutiny, a content-based restriction on speech must be “necessary to serve a compelling state interest” and “narrowly drawn to achieve that end.” Perry Educ. Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983); see Playboy, 529 U.S. at 813. The requirement that a restriction on speech be narrowly drawn requires the regulation to be the least restrictive alternative available. Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 798 n. 6 (1989). The Supreme Court has recognized that “it is the rare case in which . . . a law survives strict scrutiny.” Burson v. Freeman, 504 U.S. 191, 211 (1992). “With rare exceptions, content discrimination in regulations of the speech of private citizens on private property . . . is presumptively impermissible, and this presumption is a very strong one.” City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 58 (1994) (O’Connor, J., concurring). The Supreme Court has defined laws which are content-based—and thereby are subject to strict scrutiny—as those which cannot be justified “without reference to the content of the regulated speech.” Virginia Pharmacy Bd. v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 771 (1976). Laws which engage in “discrimination among different users of the same medium for expression” are generally held to be content-based. Police Dept. of City of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 96 (1972); see also First Nat’l Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 784-85 (1978) (“In the realm of protected speech, the legislature is constitutionally disqualified from dictating the subjects about which persons may speak and the speakers who may address a public issue.”). Thus, for example, a law which prohibits picketing, except when engaged in as part of a labor dispute, is content-based because it gives preferential treatment to people using picketing to speak on one particular subject. Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 445, 460-61 (1980). Similarly, a law which prohibits signs critical of a foreign-government, while permitting all other signs, is content-based and must survive strict scrutiny, Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 318-19 (1988), even though a law banning all signs would be permitted. “In short, [if] some types of signs are extensively regulated while others are exempt from regulation based on the nature of the messages they seek to convey, [a] sign code [would be] undeniably a content-based restriction on speech.” Solantic, LLC v. City of Neptune Beach, 410 F.3d 1250, 1266 (11th Cir. 2005). Case law from our sister circuits suggests that whether or not a law which burdens commercial speech is content-based weighs heavily on whether or not a sign ordinance will survive constitutional muster. While a plurality of the Supreme Court has held that “traffic safety and the No. 06-3828 Midwest Media Property, et al. v. Symmes Twp., Ohio Page 19 appearance of the city are substantial government goals,” and thus sufficient to satisfy intermediate scrutiny, Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, 453 U.S. 490, 507-08 (1981) (plurality opinion), at least two Courts of Appeal have questioned whether these interests are sufficient to survive strict scrutiny. See Solantic, 410 F.3d at 1268 (finding that a “sign code is not narrowly tailored to accomplish the City’s asserted interests in aesthetics and traffic safety” and that case law “[does not] recognize[ ] those interests as ‘compelling’”); Whitton v. City of Gladstone, Mo., 54 F.3d 1400, 1408 (8th Cir. 1995) (“[A] municipality’s asserted interests in traffic safety and aesthetics, while significant, have never been held to be compelling.”).