This post originally appeared on Municipal Minute by Julie Tappendorf, Esq. from Ancel Glink and reposted with permission.
We’ve written a number of posts in City Minutes discussing U.S. Supreme Court decisions in cases challenging the city’s code of conduct under the First Amendment. In 2015, we reported on the Court’s decision in Reed v. Gilbert overturning the temporary sign ordinance of Gilbert City, Arizona. Reed’s case has subsequently been applied to by a number of courts across the country in challenges to municipal sign ordinances in which sign companies and others made the argument that the ordinance being challenged treats signs differently based on content, even when an ordinance appears to be targeting sign locations (i.e., signage at locations versus off-site) than the content of the sign itself.
In April 2022, we reported on the US Supreme Court decision in Austin National Advertising v. Austin where the Court upheld Austin, Texas City ordinances which distinguished between on-site and off-site signs, found that location regulations were more time, place, and method restrictions than content or message restrictions. The court rejected the argument that if an official must read a sign to determine whether it is on-premise or off-premise (i.e., a “needs to read” rule), then it is content-based regulation, arguing that this was Reed’s interpretation too extreme.
Just last week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (a federal court of appeals covering Illinois and nearby states), issued a ruling in a billboard challenge consistent with the Austin case, enforcing Madison, Wisconsin ordinances that prohibit digital billboard signs. On Adams Outdoor Advertising LP v. The City of Madison, Wisconsin, Seventh Circuit rejected the billboard company’s argument that Reed should control the outcome of the case. Instead, the Seventh Circuit relied on a more recent ruling in the Austin case to enforce Madison’s ban on off-site digital signs as a content-neutral “time, place, or manner” rule, finding that the ordinance targeted the location of the sign. , and not the content or message. The Seventh Circuit also notes that Madison’s stated government interest in promoting traffic safety and preserving visual aesthetics is a significant government interest in supporting Madison’s ban on digital signs. In short, the Seventh Circuit rejected a billboard company’s challenge to a digital sign ban outside of the Madison location.