Daniel Horwitz — who has fought plenty of free speech battles for Tennesseans — has secured an extremely quick victory for his client, Lakeland resident Julie Pereira.
According to the complaint [PDF], which was filed June 6 of this year, the city of Lakeland took offense to a sign Pereira had placed in her yard. It was bit of political speech that expressed her opinion about Donald Trump and Joe Biden all in one pithy phrase: “Fuck ‘Em Both 2024.”
Someone in power didn’t like the sign. The city decided it would start fining Pereira by leveraging its sign regulations which forbid a long list of things.
In particular, the City of Lakeland and its Code Enforcement Officer, Defendant Katrina Shields, believe that Ms. Pereira’s Political Sign violates City of Lakeland sign regulations that prohibit “statements of an obscene, indecent, or immoral character which would offend public morals or decency” and “statements, words or pictures of an obscene nature.”
The city believed this sign fell under that laundry list of forbiddables, but it actually doesn’t. Making things worse is the shifting set of restrictions the city applies to signs, based on little more than the city’s perception of what each sign it seeks to regulate actually is.
[U]nder the City of Lakeland’s Municipal Code, signs are regulated differently depending on whether they are “works of art with no commercial message,” “special event signs for community events,” “incidental signs,” “window signs,” “building marker” signs, “changeable copy signs,” “construction signs,” “directory signs,” “identification signs,” “menu board” signs, “model home” signs, “principal ground” signs, “real estate” (but not single-family residential) signs, “residential real estate” signs, “subdivision entry” signs, “temporary signs,” “wall signs” (depending on whether they are nonresidential or residential), “temporary residential yard” signs, “suspended signs,” or—as here—“political signs.”
Political signs are subject to the most restrictions, governing everything from how many can be placed in any area to how long they can remain in place. The city decided this was a political sign (rather than a “work of art” or a “temporary residential yard sign”) and started fining Pereira.
Pereira — under the threat of further enforcement — even neutered her sign in an attempt to placate the unconstitutional desires of city regulators.
She shouldn’t have had to do this, as Horwitz points out in the lawsuit:
This coerced modification has satisfied the Defendants. It does not satisfy Ms. Pereira, though, any more than a jacket bearing the words “F*ck the Draft” would have satisfied Paul Cohen. Cf. Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 26 (1971).
The lawsuit swiftly followed the incursion on Pereira’s free speech rights (which included nearly $700 in fines). And now a settlement [PDF] has just as swiftly followed this lawsuit. Apparently, all the city needed was a legitimate challenge of its sign statutes and a few minutes to think about it.
Not only will the city be refunding the fines charged to Pereira and covering her legal fees, it has also agreed the law (as applied to Pereira) is unconstitutional. Yeah, it’s a bit of a unicorn. A government has agreed to settle without attaching a clause denying any wrongdoing.
Under Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), the Plaintiff’s political sign is not obscene, and the Defendants may not lawfully regulate it based on the viewpoint it expresses.
For these reasons, the Court DECLARES UNCONSTITUTIONAL the Defendants’ enforcement action against the Plaintiff for displaying her unredacted political yard sign, a copy of which is set forth in the record at Doc. 1-1. The Defendants are thus PERMANENTLY ENJOINED from taking any further enforcement action against the Plaintiff for displaying her unredacted political yard sign.
That’s the language the city has agreed to. All it needs now is a judge’s signature. And with this win, others in the same city should feel free to let their freak fuck flags fly.
