OneLBriefs

City of Ladue v. Gilleo

City ordinance prohibited homeowners from displaying any sign on their property. However, commercial ordinances are allowed to erect some signs.
Respondent put a political speech sign on her lawn, but it was not allowed and the city denied her a variance.
Then, she put up a window sign, and the city created a new ordinance that prohibited that type of sign. It also provided a lengthy list of findings, including that the signs would create "ugliness, visual blight, and clutter, . . . decrease property values, impinge on the special ambiance of the community, and may cause safety and traffic hazards."
Gilleo challenged the statute claiming that it violated free speech.

Does a city ordinance that prohibits, for aesthetic purposes, signs on property and in windows infringe on the resident's right to freedom of speech?
On what grounds can the constitutionality of a regulation on the display of signs be challenged?

Holding/Rule

A city ordinance that prohibits signs on property and in windows infringes on residents' right to freedom of speech.
There are two analytically distinct grounds for challenging the constitutionality of a municipal ordinance regulating the display of signs.

The measure in effect restricts too little speech because its exemptions discriminate on the basis of the signs' message; OR
They prohibit too much protected speech.

Signs are protected by free speech, but they pose distinctive problems that are subject to municipalities' police powers.
Signs take up space and can obstruct views, distract motorists, displace alternative uses for land, and pose other problems that legitimately call for regulation.
Within reasonable bounds and absent censorial purposes, government can regulate signs.
In Linmark, residents were banned from putting up "for sale" signs.

Court held that the first amendment prevented this ban on the free flow of truthful info.

This is the opposite of this case, where "for sale" signs are allowed, but almost all others are banned.

In addition, the ordinance was not concerned with aesthetic values unrelated to the content of the prohibited speech. However, the city relies directly on this here.

In Metromedia, the Court concluded that the city's interest in traffic safety and its aesthetic interest in preventing visual clutter could justify a prohibition of off-site commercial billboards even though on-site billboards were allowed.

However, this ordinance was invalidated because it impermissibly discriminated on the basis of content by permitting on-site commercial speech but prohibiting non-commercial messages.

In City Council of LA v. Taxpayers for Vincent, the Court upheld a LA ordinance that prohibited posting signs on public property based on aesthetic grounds.

Court rejected the argument that the validity of the city's aesthetic interest was compromised by failing to extend the ban to private property.

There are two analytically distinct grounds for challenging the constitutionality of a municipal ordinance regulating the display of signs.

The measure in effect restricts too little speech because its exemptions discriminate on the basis of the signs' message; OR
They prohibit too much protected speech.

COA relied on the first. City of Ladue argues that that is misplaced, because the city's regulatory purposes are content-neutral and that these purposes justify the comprehensiveness of the sign problem.
Court says that an under-inclusive prohibition is unconstitutional because it might allow the gov't to control what speech gets into the public sphere.

Ladue argues that the mix of prohibitions and exemptions in the statute reflect the different side effects of various kinds of signs. They are only adventitiously related to content.

Permitted signs are unlikely to contribute to the dangers of unlimited proliferation.

Ladue has not imposed a flat ban on signs because it has determined that at least some of them are too vital to be banned.

First, we ask whether the ordinance prohibits too much speech by prohibiting Gilleo's speech.

City's interest in reducing visual clutter is valid, but not more compelling than the gov't interest in Linmark.
Impact on free communication is greater than in Linmark.
While we allowed a broad amt of speech to be restricted in Vincent, we specifically noted that the category of speech in question- signs placed on public property- was not a uniquely valuable or important mode of communication.
Here, however, Ladue has almost completely foreclosed a venerable means of communication. It has foreclosed all political, religious or personal messages.

Our prior decisions have been concerned with laws that foreclose an entire medium of expression, even if it is completely free of content or viewpoint discrimination.

We are not persuaded that adequate substitutes exist for the important medium of speech that Ladue has closed off.
Displaying a sign from one's own residence carries a distinctive message from placing the same sign someplace else.
Residential signs are an unusually cheap and convenient form of communication.
It is an important way to reach neighbors.
There is a special respect for individual liberty in the home.

Finally, Court states that the city should not worry much about visual clutter because homeowners have substantial economic incentive to keep their property neat.