Am. Freedom Defense Initiative v. Suburban Mobility Auth. for Reg'l Transp.

• Decision Date: 19 December 2012
• Docket Number: No. 11–1538.,11–1538.
• Citation: 698 F.3d 885
• Parties: AMERICAN FREEDOM DEFENSE INITIATIVE; Pamela Geller; Robert Spencer, Plaintiffs–Appellees, v. SUBURBAN MOBILITY AUTHORITY FOR REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION (SMART); John Hertel, individually and in his official capacity as General Manager of SMART; Beth Gibbons, individually and in her official capacity as Marketing Program Manager of SMART, Defendants–Appellants, Gary I. Hendrickson, individually and in his official capacity as Chief Executive of SMART, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

698 F.3d 885

AMERICAN FREEDOM DEFENSE INITIATIVE; Pamela Geller; Robert Spencer, Plaintiffs–Appellees,

v. SUBURBAN MOBILITY AUTHORITY FOR REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION (SMART); John Hertel, individually and in his official capacity as General Manager of SMART; Beth Gibbons, individually and in her official capacity as Marketing Program Manager of SMART, Defendants–Appellants,Gary I. Hendrickson, individually and in his official capacity as Chief Executive of SMART, Defendant.

No. 11–1538.

United States Court of Appeals,Sixth Circuit.

Argued: July 26, 2012.

Decided and Filed: Oct. 25, 2012.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Dec. 19, 2012.

ARGUED:Christian E. Hildebrandt, Vandeveer Garzia, P.C., Troy, Michigan, for Appellants. Robert J. Muise, American Freedom Law Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan, for Appellees. ON BRIEF:Christian E. Hildebrandt, John J. Lynch, Vandeveer Garzia, P.C., Troy, Michigan, Avery E. Gordon, Anthony Chubb, Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, for Appellants. Robert J. Muise, Thomas More Law Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan, David Yerushalmi, Law Offices of David Yerushalmi, P.C., Chandler, Arizona, for Appellees.

Before: ROGERS and KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judges; MARBLEY, District Judge.^*

OPINION

ROGERS, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff American Freedom Defense Initiative is a nonprofit corporation that wanted to place an advertisement on the side of city buses in Michigan. The advertisement read: “Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got Questions? Get Answers! RefugefromIslam.com”. Defendant Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) refused to display the advertisement, citing its policy prohibiting content that is political or that subjects any group to scorn. Upon learning of the rejection, plaintiffs sued SMART, claiming a First Amendment violation. The district court granted a preliminary injunction, holding that plaintiffs likely could show that SMART's decision was arbitrary and capricious. The injunction should not have issued, however, because plaintiffs are not likely to succeed in demonstrating that SMART unreasonably excluded this political speech from a nonpublic forum.

I

SMART, a state-run transit authority, operates public transportation throughout Michigan's four southeastern-most counties. Through an exclusive agent, CBS Outdoor, Inc., SMART supplements its revenue by selling advertising space on its vehicles. The advertising space is subject to SMART's “Restriction on Content” policy, which limits the permissible content of advertisements displayed on SMART vehicles. The policy reads:

In order to minimize chances of abuse, the appearance of favoritism, and the risk of imposing upon a captive audience, [SMART] shall not allow the following content:

1. Political or political campaign advertising.

2. Advertising promoting the sale of alcohol or tobacco.

3. Advertising that is false, misleading, or deceptive.

4. Advertising that is clearly defamatory or likely to hold up to scorn or ridicule any person or group of persons.

5. Advertising that is obscene or pornographic; or in advocacy of imminent lawlessness or unlawful violent action.

CBS administers the SMART advertising program and makes the initial determination whether a proposed advertisement may fall into a prohibited category. CBS submits advertisements that fail this preliminary screening to SMART for review. SMART then makes the final determination whether the advertisement violates the content restrictions.

American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) is a nonprofit corporation that “acts against ... government officials, the mainstream media, and others” who “capitulat[e] to the global jihad and Islamic supremacism.” AFDI promotes “its political objectives by, inter alia, sponsoring anti-jihad bus and billboard campaigns, which includes seeking advertising space on SMART vehicles.” Compl. ¶¶ 6–8. Plaintiffs Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are directors of AFDI, and “engage[ ] in political and religious speech through [A]FDI activities, including [A]FDI's anti-jihad bus and billboard campaigns.”

In May 2010, AFDI tried to place the fatwa advertisement on SMART buses. CBS screened the advertisement and referred it to SMART for further review. SMART determined that the advertisement violated the content restriction against political advertising, as well as the restriction against content “likely to hold up to scorn and ridicule a group of persons.”

AFDI sued for equitable relief, accusing SMART of violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court granted a preliminary injunction, enjoining SMART from applying its content restrictions to plaintiffs' speech. Am. Freedom Def. Initiative v. Suburban Mobility Auth. for Reg'l Transp., No. 10–12134, 2011 WL 1256918, at *6 (E.D.Mich. Mar. 31, 2011). The court held that SMART's advertising space was a nonpublic forum, but that the content restrictions failed to provide adequate guidance to decisionmakers about the difference between permissible and non-permissible advertisements. The district court noted, as an example of this lack of guidance, that SMART had allowed an advertisement by the Detroit Coalition for Reason (the “atheist advertisement”), but disallowed the fatwa advertisement. The atheist advertisement read: “Don't believe in God? You are not alone. DetroitCoR.org”. The district court found that this purportedly disparate treatment showed the absence of guidance. SMART timely appeals.

II

When considering a motion for a preliminary injunction, a district court must balance four factors: “(1) whether the movant has a strong likelihood of success on the merits; (2) whether the movant would suffer irreparable injury absent the injunction; (3) whether the injunction would cause substantial harm to others; and (4) whether the public interest would be served by the issuance of an injunction.” Bays v. City of Fairborn, 668 F.3d 814, 818–819 (6th Cir.2012). Although a district court's decision whether to grant a preliminary injunction is generally reviewed for an abuse of discretion, Certified Restoration Dry Cleaning Network, LLC v. Tenke Corp., 511 F.3d 535, 540 (6th Cir.2007), in cases with First Amendment implications, the standard of review is de novo.

Bays, 668 F.3d at 819. This is because “[w]hen First Amendment rights are implicated, the factors for granting a preliminary injunction essentially collapse into a determination of whether restrictions on First Amendment rights are justified to protect competing constitutional rights.” Cnty. Sec. Agency v. Ohio Dep't of Commerce, 296 F.3d 477, 485 (6th Cir.2002). Put another way, in the First Amendment context, the other factors are essentially encompassed by the analysis of the movant's likelihood of success on the merits, which is a question of law that must be reviewed de novo. Tenke Corp., 511 F.3d at 541.

III

SMART's actions are reviewed for reasonableness and viewpoint neutrality because the advertising space created by SMART was a nonpublic forum. We are required to classify the forum under the Supreme Court's forum analysis, which courts use to determine “whether a state-imposed restriction on access to public property is constitutionally permissible.” United Food & Commercial Workers Union v. Sw. Ohio Reg'l Transit Auth., 163 F.3d 341, 349 (6th Cir.1998). It is undisputed that SMART's restrictions are state-imposed, seeMich. Comp. Laws § 124.403, and that the relevant forum is the advertising space on SMART's buses. The analysis, therefore, turns on whether the advertising space is a traditional public, designated public, or nonpublic forum. United Food, 163 F.3d at 349. The forum type dictates the level of scrutiny applied to content-based restrictions like SMART's advertising rules. See Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 473 U.S. 788, 800, 105 S.Ct. 3439, 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985). The parties agree that this case does not involve a traditional public forum. In distinguishing between a designated public forum and a non-public forum, we focus on whether the government intentionally opened the forum for public discourse. See United Food, 163 F.3d at 350. We are guided not only by the government's explicit statements, policy, and practice, id., but also by the “nature of the property and its compatibility with expressive activity to discern the government's intent.” Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 802, 105 S.Ct. 3439.

SMART's tight control over the advertising space and the multiple rules governing advertising content make the space incompatible with the public discourse, assembly, and debate that characterize a designated public forum. Although SMART's written policy does not explicitly identify the buses as a nonpublic forum, SMART's policy restricts the content of that forum. SMART has banned political advertisements, speech that is the hallmark of a public forum. Moreover, SMART has limited the forum by restricting the type of content that nonpolitical advertisers can display. While reasonable minds can disagree as to the extent of the restriction—SMART has provided only three examples of excluded advertisements—the policy of exclusion has been exercised in a manner consistent with the policy statement.

The Supreme Court held that similar restrictions created a nonpublic forum in Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, 418 U.S. 298, 299, 301–302, 94 S.Ct. 2714, 41 L.Ed.2d 770 (1974). The plaintiff in Lehman was a political candidate that sought to place political advertisements on “car cards” on a city's transit vehicles. The Lehman Court held that advertising space sold on city buses was not a public forum because the city had rejected all political advertisements. The plurality reasoned that a ban on political advertisements was a “managerial decision to limit [advertising] space to innocuous and less controversial commercial and service oriented advertising.” Id. at 304, 94 S.Ct. 2714. The plurality noted...