Court Opinion

ID: 9631313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:34:02.071424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:51.956156
License: Public Domain

MANION, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
The Granite City Ordinance allows for *639the distribution of handbills2 directly to people or to homes and businesses which are currently occupied. It prohibits the placing of handbills on parked vehicles and unoccupied private premises. Clearly the Ordinance regulates speech, but only the manner of speech. Thus, as the court concludes, the Ordinance is properly reviewed as a time, place, and manner regulation, and not a regulation of a forum. Accordingly, I concur with the court’s well-reasoned conclusion that the Ordinance does not regulate a nonpublic forum. Rather, it requires a time, place and manner analysis of any restriction on speech. For the reasons explained below, I disagree with the court’s determination that the Ordinance is unconstitutional and conclude that the Ordinance is a valid time, place and manner regulation of speech. No further evidence from the City is needed to reach this conclusion. Because I believe the Ordinance is valid, I would overturn the damage award and award of attorneys’ fees as well.
Section 2(b) of the Ordinance provides that “[n]o person shall deposit or throw any handbill in or upon any vehicle.”3 Horina wishes to place handbills “on automobiles that are parked on public places” and claims Section 2(b) is unconstitutional. Appellee Br. at 6. Because the Ordinance is a restriction on the manner of speech,4 to survive constitutional scrutiny, the restriction must be content-neutral and the regulation must (1) serve a substantial governmental interest; (2) be narrowly tailored to advance that interest; and (3) leave open ample alternative channels of communication. See Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 791, 109 S.Ct. 2746, 105 L.Ed.2d 661 (1989); Weinberg v. City of Chi., 310 F.3d 1029, 1036-37 (7th Cir.2002).
It is undisputed that the Ordinance is content-neutral. The Ordinance also serves a substantial governmental interest. Specifically, as set out in the preamble, the Ordinance was enacted to protect the City’s residents’ “desire to be free from unwanted intrusion, trespass, harassment, and litter.” The court concludes that “the prevention of litter, intrusion, trespass, and harassment is a substantial government interest that would justify a restriction on handbilling,” Opinion at 633, but because “Granite City failed to proffer any evidence showing that handbilling caused litter, intrusion, trespass, or harassment in the City,” the Ordinance is unconstitutional.5 Opinion at 634. However, when evaluating the constitutionality of a statute, *640“common sense must not be and should not be suspended.... ” Anderson v. Milwaukee County, 433 F.3d 975, 978 (7th Cir.2006). Common sense dictates that the Ordinance serves the interests noted. It would be the rare driver indeed who has not experienced the intrusion of a flyer placed under a car windshield and the annoyance of removing the flyer, especially in inclement weather or when the driver doesn’t notice it tucked under the passenger side windshield wiper until after fastening his seatbelt and starting his car. While the more thoughtful drivers dispose of such flyers properly, common sense tells us that at least some of the unwanted flyers become litter, even without evidence from the City.
Our sister circuit found common sense enough to establish the City’s substantial governmental interest in Jobe v. City of Catlettsburg, 409 F.3d 261 (6th Cir.2005), which is directly on point. In Jobe, the plaintiff challenged the City of Catletts-burg’s Ordinance which prohibited individuals from placing leaflets on vehicles. In analyzing this time, place and manner regulation, the Sixth Circuit stated that “the ordinance advances two significant government interests: (1) It furthers the government’s interest in prohibiting litter and visual blight; and (2) it furthers individuals’ interests in having their private property left alone by those who do not have permission to use it.” Id. at 268. The court added: “Allowing individuals to decide for themselves how, when or whether their private property is used ... as a container for an advertisement (e.g., placing a leaflet under the car windshield wipers) is a legitimate, if not compelling government interest.” Id. Significantly, the Sixth Circuit then stated:
Nor does Catlettsburg stand alone in seeking to advance these government interests. That at least one State (New York) and at least 38 other cities — from Philadelphia and Atlanta to San Antonio and Portland (Oregon) to Mishawaka (Indiana) and Albany (Georgia) — have passed similar laws suggests that the policy behind them is premised on legitimate rather than contrived police-power concerns. In view of the common-sense explanations for these types of laws, they do not invariably require proof that the problem has occurred in the past (a daunting task in view of the 1952 vintage of this law and the understandable absence of information about why the law was passed) or an elaborate study of their present-day necessity (an equally daunting task in view of the difficulty of showing the empirical necessity for a law that has been in place for more than 50 years). While governments normally should be expected to weigh the costs and benefits of regulating methods of speech as well as the alternative to regulating speech at all before enacting such laws, it hardly amounts to speculation to conclude that the First Amendment costs of this law are quite modest (given the inexpensive alternatives available for distributing literature and advertisements) and the police-power benefits of the law are quite legitimate (given the private-property and aesthetic interests advanced by the law). Nor, at any rate, has [the plaintiff] presented any reason to question the city’s theory that a ban on placing advertisements and posters on cars will further the city’s interest in preventing littering on private property and in preventing the use of private property for purposes neither intended nor welcome by the owner.
Id. at 269 (internal citations and quotations omitted).
I would follow Jobe and hold that § 2(b) of the Ordinance serves a substantial governmental interest and that no specific evi*641dence is needed to establish this conclusion. Moreover, even if some evidence were needed to confirm the common sense conclusion that the Ordinance addresses the need to prevent litter and to avoid unwanted intrusions on private property, we have such evidence in this case. Specifically, Nathan Lang testified during the first preliminary injunction hearing that he did not like literature placed under the windshield of his parked car, and that after Horina placed Gospel tracts on Lang’s car on two separate occasions, Lang confronted Horina and asked him to stop placing the tracts on his car. When Horina ignored Lang’s request and slid another Gospel tract through Lang’s open window, the City charged Horina with trespass. The court claims the City’s reliance on Lang’s testimony comes too late to carry the day. Opinion at 634. But Lang testified during the first preliminary injunction hearing before the district court granted Horina judgment on the pleadings, meaning that this evidence was before the district court. It is true that the City did not otherwise tee up this evidence for the district court, but that is not surprising because Lang had moved for judgment on the pleadings, and not summary judgment. If, as the court concludes, the district court may treat the motion as one for summary judgment because the court had asked for additional evidence, the district court should have considered all of the evidence already before it.
The court also reasons that since “Hori-na was eventually cited with trespassing on Lang’s car,” Lang’s testimony “creates the distinct impression that a broad restriction on handbilling is not needed to combat trespass when the City already has enacted an ordinance that proscribes trespass.” Opinion at 633-34. Contrary to the court’s reasoning, though, Lang’s testimony confirms the common-sense understanding of the need for such an Ordinance to prevent unwanted intrusion on private property. While Horina was cited for trespassing, that was only possible because Lang had previously witnessed Horina placing flyers on his (Lang’s) car and had asked Horina to stop doing so. Significantly, Lang was also physically present at the time that Horina ignored his request and shoved a third tract into Lang’s car. It was only because Lang was able to see Horina placing flyers on his car that Lang was able to ask him to stop, turning Hori-na’s future behavior into a trespass. But Lang’s testimony confirms that he did not like Horina leaving things on his car prior to the conduct which resulted in a trespass citation. While a trespass ordinance can address the trespass, the City’s handbill Ordinance addresses the leaving of pamphlets in cases where motorists are not present to object and identify the trespasser. (The flyer does not trespass, the person does.) Therefore, even if some evidence were needed to support the City’s position that the Ordinance protects citizens’ “desire to be free from unwanted intrusion, trespass, harassment, and litter,” such evidence existed in the form of Lang’s testimony.
I further conclude that § 2(b) is narrowly tailored to address the governmental interests at stake. As the Sixth Circuit concluded in Jobe, the ordinance “targeted the precise problems — littering on private automobiles and unauthorized use of private property — that it wished to correct.” Id. at 270. So too here: The Granite City Ordinance regulates precisely the conduct that causes the litter and interferences with private property, namely the placing of flyers on automobiles. Given this direct nexus between the Ordinance and the governmental interest at stake, I conclude *642that Ordinance 2(b) is narrowly tailored.6
Likewise, the Ordinance leaves open ample avenues of speech — specifically, handbills may be handed to pedestrians or motorists at the same time and same place, and also may be distributed at occupied homes and businesses. Again, I would follow the Sixth Circuit’s well-reasoned opinion in Jobe:
[T]he ordinance leaves open ample alternative channels of communication. Placed in the context of other municipal laws enacted by the city, the ordinance permits a wide range of leafletting activities. Catlettsburg does not prohibit leafletting in its most traditional sense-offering handbills to pedestrians and giving them the choice to take the handbill or leave it. It does not prohibit citizens from exercising their right to distribute literature in the same place where the ban on placing leaflets on car windshields exists-namely, by waiting in a parking lot or on a street and asking the owners of a car whether they would like a leaflet or a sign for their car.... It does not prohibit citizens from going door-to-door to talk to residents about the message they wish to share and expressly permits them to give homeowners a pamphlet if they are handed in at the door. It does not prohibit citizens from mailing information to residents. And it expressly allows citizens to leave leaflets and pamphlets at private residences if they are “placed on a porch[ ] or securely fastened to prevent [them] from being blown or scattered about.” By any measure of alternative channels of communication, the City of Catletts-burg has given its citizens numerous ways to distribute literature and information in an inexpensive, efficient and productive manner.
Jobe, 409 F.3d at 270.
Similarly, in this case, Granite City does not prohibit leafletting in the traditional sense of offering handbills to pedestrians. Likewise, Granite City does not prevent citizens from exercising their First Amendment rights at the exact same time and in the exact same place as where the ban of leafletting applies, by “waiting in a parking lot or on a street and approaching the pedestrians or motorists.” Id. Citizens may go from door-to-door in Granite City to either talk to residents, hand them pamphlets, or leave them pamphlets, so long as the pamphlets are secure. As Jobe held, these are more than adequate alternatives to the leaving of handbills on automobiles, and afford Horina (and others) “numerous ways to distribute literature and information in an inexpensive, efficient and productive manner.” Id.
The court also upholds the district court’s conclusion that Section 2(c) of the Ordinance violates the First Amendment. Section 2(c) provides: “No person shall deposit, place, or throw any handbill upon any private premises which are temporari*643ly or continuously unoccupied. Horma claims that § 2(c) violates his First Amendment rights because it prevents him from leaving information at houses where no one is currently at home, i.e., the residents are out to dinner, etc. The City responds that “temporarily or continuously unoccupied” should be given its usual and customary meaning, which is “vacant house or building,” and that a prohibition on leaving materials at vacant homes is a valid time, place, and manner restriction. Appellant’s Reply Brief at 14-15. Reading the phrase “temporarily or continuously unoccupied” as “vacant” is consistent with the structure of the Ordinance, as a whole. Specifically, § 2(d) of the ordinance provides:
[N]o person shall deposit or throw any handbill in or upon any private premises which are occupied, except by handing or transmitting any such handbill directly to the occupant or other person then present in or upon such private premises, or by placing or depositing such handbill so as to prevent it from being blown or drifted about such premises....
Section 2(d) confirms that the City’s position that “temporarily or continuously unoccupied” means vacant. Section 2(d) speaks of occupied homes as having residents who may be “then present,” which indicates that the Ordinance recognizes that at other times, the residents will not be “present,” yet the home will nonetheless be considered “occupied.” Section 2(d) allows individuals to leave pamphlets at homes that are not vacant, so long as they are secured from blowing away. Given this limited reading of the Ordinance, I conclude that § 2(c) is also a valid time, place and manner restriction because it prevents litter which would result if materials were left at vacant homes.
Had § 2(c) prohibited the leaving of materials at homes that were not vacant, I would find the restriction unconstitutional, as homes are distinguishable from automobiles. As the court explained in Jobe, 409 F.3d at 272:
In the setting of property that has a tradition of being used to receive and initiate communications, it may make abundant sense under the First Amendment to place the burden on the property owner to remove the slot on the door, to remove the mailbox, to sign onto a do-not-call or a do-not-spam list, or to place a “No Solicitation” sign on the door. It would make considerably less sense to put the vehicle owner to the choice of accepting either a ridiculous requirement (removing the windshield wipers) or an unorthodox burden (Placing a “No Handbills, No Posters ...” sign on the dashboard).
I agree with Jobe’s rationale and likewise find the distinction between handbilling at homes and on cars significant. Accordingly, if § 2(c) were read to prohibit the leaving of handbills at occupied homes, I would join the court in its conclusion that such a restriction is unconstitutional.
For these reasons, I would reverse the judgment of the district court declaring the Ordinance unconstitutional. Because I would reverse the district court’s decision on the merits, I would also reverse the damage award and the award of attorney’s fees.

. "The term 'handbill' includes any leaflet, pamphlet, brochure, notice, handout, circular, card, photograph, drawing or advertisement, printed on paper or on cardboard.” Ordinance § 2(a).

. Section 2(b) does not restrict traditional leafletting, which, as the court notes, is the offering of written materials to individuals in public places for their acceptance or rejection. Opinion at 630. Rather, § 2(b) prohibits the leaving of handbills on automobiles; with an automobile, the driver is unknown and the receptacle is mobile and lacks the ability to accept or reject the handbill.

. The Ordinance does not regulate the time of speech. Nor does it regulate the place of speech. An automobile is not a place; it is chattel (movable personal property). The street or parking lot is a place, and that place is open to distribution when the automobile is present and even after it is driven away. Thus, only the manner of speech is regulated.

.Because the district court requested that the City provide evidence, the City could have provided a statement by a police officer, street cleaner, or other witness with first hand knowledge of what happens when flyers are placed on windshields of parked cars. That would have at least eliminated one reason for declaring the Ordinance unconstitutional. That, however, was not necessary in this case.

. The court concludes that Granite City has waived the issue of whether the Ordinance is narrowly tailored. I disagree. Throughout this appeal, Granite City argued that the Ordinance is narrowly tailored to further substantial governmental interests. See Granite City Br. at 19-21. Granite City also explained why the trespass and anti-littering ordinances were insufficient to address the City’s legitimate concerns. See Granite City Reply Br. at 11-12 (“Placing handbills on private vehicles effectively transfers the responsibility to dispose of the material (with the corresponding possibility of litter) to the recipient. Furthermore, trespassing and litter ordinances would do little to resolve the problem of the blight associated with flyers or other materials being placed on every car on a public street or parking lot ... [T]he situation involving Lang further establishes the need to protect vehicle owners from receiving materials that are neither requested nor wanted.") Accordingly, Granite City did not waive the argument that the Ordinance was narrowly tailored.