L.D. Mgmt. Co. v. Thomas

• Decision Date: 24 April 2020
• Docket Number: CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:18-CV-722-JRW
• Citation: 456 F.Supp.3d 873
• Parties: L.D. MANAGEMENT COMPANY, et al., Plaintiffs v. Greg THOMAS, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Defendant
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Kentucky

456 F.Supp.3d 873

L.D. MANAGEMENT COMPANY, et al., Plaintiffs

v.Greg THOMAS, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Defendant

CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:18-CV-722-JRW

United States District Court, W.D. Kentucky.

Signed April 24, 2020

Garry R. Adams, Jr., Adams Landenwich Walton PLLC, Louisville, KY, J. Michael Murray, Steven D. Shafron, Berkman, Gordon, Murray & DeVan, Cleveland, OH, for Plaintiffs.

Clayton B. Patrick, Patrick Law Firm, Frankfort, KY, for Defendant.

ORDER AND DECLARATION

Justin R. Walker, District Judge

1. The Court GRANTS the joint summary judgment motion filed by L.D. Management Company and American Pride IX, Inc. (together, "Lion's Den") (DN 23).

a. The Court PERMANENTLY ENJOINS the Secretary of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet ("Kentucky") from enforcing the Kentucky Billboard Act against Lion's Den.¹ b. The Court REVERSES Kentucky's decision to dismiss Lion's Den's administrative appeal.

c. KRS §§ 177.830 through 177.890 are unconstitutional on their face and as applied to Lion's Den.

d. 603 KAR 10:002 and 603 KAR 10:010 are unconstitutional on their face and as applied to Lion's Den.

2. The Court GRANTS Kentucky's unopposed motion to amend or correct its summary judgment brief (DN 35).

3. The Court DENIES Kentucky's summary judgment motion (DN 21).

4. The Court will enter a separate Final Judgment in Lion's Den's favor.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

In many countries, censorship is routine. But not in America.² The First Amendment generally precludes the government from suppressing speech "because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content."³

* * *

On land leased from a former employee, Lion's Den has a billboard off I-65: "Lion's Den Adult Superstore Exit Now."⁴ The billboard is on the side of a tractor trailer, and drivers can see it as they drive. That's the whole point of the billboard: Lion's Den wants to advertise its location to drivers, and its "Exit Now" message does just that.

Kentucky told Lion's Den to remove the billboard because it violates three Kentucky regulations: 1) it isn't securely affixed to the ground;⁵ 2) it's on a mobile structure;⁶ and 3) Lion's Den does not have a permit.⁷ None of these requirements would apply if Lion's Den's billboard referred to activities on the land where the billboard sits. Raising an as-applied challenge and a facial challenge, Lion's Den filed this First Amendment lawsuit and asked the Court to hold the Kentucky Billboard Act unconstitutional.⁸

Lion's Den is entitled to summary judgment.

* * *

Kentucky's regulations are content-based restrictions on speech.⁹ That's because the legality of Lion's Den's sign depends on what the sign says.¹⁰ If it refers to on-site activities, it doesn't need a permit. If it refers to off-site activities, it needs a permit, can't be mobile, and must be securely affixed to the ground.

Kentucky relies on the Sixth Circuit's 1987 decision in Wheeler v. Commissioner of Highways ,¹¹ which found that Kentucky's regulation of signs was content-neutral because Kentucky's purpose was content-neutral.¹² But in 2015, the Supreme Court rejected similar reasoning in Reed v. Town of Gilbert and said that a regulation of signs is "presumptively unconstitutional" if it relies on the sign's content, regardless of the government's purpose.¹³ Four years later, in Thomas v. Bright , the Sixth Circuit said, " Reed overruled Wheeler , which is no longer good law."¹⁴

Lion's Den relies on Thomas – the Sixth Circuit decision that wasn't overruled. At issue in Thomas was a Tennessee Billboard Act "identical" to Kentucky's Billboard Act.¹⁵ Applying Reed , the Sixth Circuit found that Tennessee's "on-premises exception scheme is a content-based regulation of (restriction on) free speech."¹⁶ It called the dispute "neither a close call nor a difficult question."¹⁷ And it held the regulation unconstitutional because the on-premises/off-premises distinction was not narrowly tailored to serve Tennessee's asserted interests in public aesthetics, traffic safety, and protection of property owners' rights.¹⁸

Here, to justify the on-premises/off-premises distinction, Kentucky asserts public aesthetics, traffic safety, and protection of property owners' rights.¹⁹ Sound familiar?

To be sure, the speech in Thomas was not commercial. But the First Amendment still subjects regulations of commercial speech to "heightened judicial scrutiny."²⁰ That has sometimes looked a lot like intermediate scrutiny.²¹ Recently, it has arguably inched closer to strict scrutiny.²²

In this case, the label doesn't matter.²³ To survive either inquiry, Kentucky must provide proof in support of its asserted interests.²⁴ Here, it has offered none. Instead, Kentucky admitted that it has no evidence that Lion's Den's billboard interfered with aesthetics along I-65 in a different manner than if it referred to on-premises activities.²⁵ Kentucky also admitted it has no evidence that Lion's Den's billboard has distracted any driver.²⁶ And rather than vindicating property owners' rights, Kentucky has undermined them by denying a landowner the right to continue leasing his property to Lion's Den.²⁷

What's worse than Kentucky's billboard policing is how it may have selectively policed the particular billboard in this case. Lion's Den told Kentucky about other offending billboards on mobile structures and even provided photos of them.²⁸ This evidence – which Kentucky filed in support of its summary judgment motion – raises a suspicion that Kentucky specifically targeted Lion's Den and ignored other billboards that broke its rules. If so, this selective enforcement is viewpoint discrimination, an even more "egregious" violation of the First Amendment.²⁹

* * *

Among judges and academics, there is an ongoing and important debate about modern severability doctrine. "[W]hen early American courts determined that a statute was unconstitutional, they would simply decline to enforce it in the case before them. ‘There was no "next step" in which courts inquired into whether the legislature would have preferred no law at all to the constitutional remainder.’ "³⁰ But more recent precedents take that "next step."³¹ Regardless of whether "modern severability precedents are in tension with longstanding limits on the judicial power," those precedents bind this Court.³² And for two reasons, in this case, the unconstitutional on-premises/off-premises distinction in the Kentucky Billboard Act is not severable from the rest of the Act.

First, Kentucky didn't specifically raise severability as a defense in this lawsuit.³³ Nor did it raise severability in the summary judgment briefing.³⁴

Second, for the same reasons the on-premises/off-premises distinction was not severable from the Tennessee Billboard Act in Thomas , the distinction is not severable from the materially "identical" Kentucky Billboard Act here.³⁵ If anything, the case against severability is even stronger in Kentucky, because Tennessee's statutory presumption against severability doesn't contain Kentucky's express exception to that presumption when a statute's "remaining parts are so essentially and inseparably connected with and dependent upon the unconstitutional part that it is apparent that the General Assembly would not have enacted the remaining parts without the unconstitutional part."³⁶

* * *

The billboard for Lion's Den may remain where it stands. The Kentucky Billboard Act is unconstitutional in its entirety.

1 As a general rule, a court's injunction "should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs." Califano v. Yamasaki , 442 U.S. 682, 702, 99 S.Ct. 2545, 61 L.Ed.2d 176 (1979).

2 U.S. Const. amend. I ("Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."); U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1 ("No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.").

3 National Institute of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 2361, 2371, 201 L.Ed.2d 835 (2018) ; Reed v. Town of Gilbert , 576 U.S. 155, 135 S. Ct. 2218, 2226, 192 L.Ed.2d 236 (2015) ; McCullen v. Coakley , 573 U.S. 464, 477, 134 S.Ct. 2518, 189 L.Ed.2d 502 (2014) ; United States v. Alvarez , 567 U.S. 709, 716, 132 S.Ct. 2537, 183 L.Ed.2d 574 (2012) (plurality op.); Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association , 564 U.S. 786, 791, 131 S.Ct. 2729, 180 L.Ed.2d 708 (2011) ; United States v. Stevens , 559 U.S. 460, 468, 130 S.Ct. 1577, 176 L.Ed.2d 435 (2010) ; R.A.V. v. St. Paul , 505 U.S. 377, 384 n.4, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992) ; Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of New York State Crime Victims Board , 502 U.S. 105, 126, 112 S.Ct. 501, 116 L.Ed.2d 476 (1991) (Kennedy, J., concurring); Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland , 481 U.S. 221, 229, 107 S.Ct. 1722, 95 L.Ed.2d 209 (1987) ; Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp. , 463 U.S. 60, 65, 103 S.Ct. 2875, 77 L.Ed.2d 469 (1983) ; Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Commission , 447 U.S. 530, 537, 100 S.Ct. 2326, 65 L.Ed.2d 319 (1980) ; Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc. , 425 U.S. 748, 776, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976) (Stewart, J., concurring); Erznoznik v. Jacksonville , 422 U.S. 205, 215, 95 S.Ct. 2268, 45 L.Ed.2d 125 (1975) ; Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley , 408 U.S. 92, 95, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972).

4 DN 21-2.

5 603 KAR 10:010 Section 1(4)(d) ("The erection or existence of a static advertising device shall be prohibited in a protected area if the device ... [i]s not securely affixed to a substantial structure permanently attached to the ground."); see also , DN 36 at #511 (Court: "So would you concede that this statute prohibits this sign?" Mr. Patrick: "Yes. Yes.").

6 603 KAR...