All Michael Cefali wanted to do was to sell his car.
It was a late-model Volkswagen, and he put a “For Sale” sign in the back window, hoping to get the attention of a possible buyer.
Instead, he got a $50 fine for violating San Juan Capistrano’s ban on posting those words in a vehicle on a public street.
In response, he filed a federal lawsuit over the decision by the California city to censor speech.
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that government cannot favor some messages over others based on their content,” said Larry Salzman, principal attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is representing Cefali.
“Yet that’s what San Juan Capistrano is doing by censoring ‘for-sale’ signs in parked cars. If Michael had put a different sign in his car – a political sign, or an advertisement for a garage sale – that would be OK with the city. But because his sign advertised his car for sale, he is being punished.
“This kind of discriminatory restriction on speech collides with the Constitution, so we’re asking a court to strike it down,” he said.
The city told Cefali that it routinely enforces the speech restriction. And while he paid the fine, he wasn’t happy, and now is pursuing the First Amendment case in court.
The city’s law, San Juan Capistrano Municipal Code 4-6.311 (a), is the target of the lawsuit filed recently in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Cefali’s story:
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Assisting in the case are students from a PLF-sponsored litigation clinic program at the Dale E. Fowler School of Law at Chapman University.
“San Juan Capistrano is sideswiping First Amendment rights by forbidding people from using a simple sign to communicate that their car is for sale,” said Salzman.
“This case is important to me both for practical reasons and important reasons of principle,” Cefali said in a statement released by the lawyers. “If I can’t sell my car in front of my own house, it’s obviously a big burden, because I have to move the car and park it in Dana Point, Laguna Hills or somewhere else simply to let drivers know it’s for sale.
“But the principles at stake are just as important,” he added. “I’m suing for my rights and, hopefully, to strengthen the First Amendment for everybody. As someone who loves the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – and who studied them carefully in law school – I could not ignore the city’s violations when I became aware of them in a personal way, right in the pocketbook.”
The complaint charges, “Under the First Amendment, laws that target speech based on its communicative content are presumptively unconstitutional and may be justified only if the government proves that they are narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests.”
It seeks a declaratory judgment that the restriction is unconstitutional and a permanent injunction forbidding the city from enforcing it. Cefali also seeks nominal damages to be reimbursed for the fine he paid.
After getting the ticket, Cefali, a law student at the time, researched the issue and discovered speech restrictions already had been struck down in Los Angeles; Alexandria, Virginia; Glendale, Ohio; and other cities.
He also discovered that “as many as 261 tickets have been issued for violations of the speech ordinance in the past three years alone.”
The complaint notes: “The speech ordinance targets only one type of speech. Someone placing a sign in his car advertising it for sale is punished, whereas a person who displayed a sign endorsing a political candidate, or one pointing to a garage sale, or advertising an event, is not, even if the signs are of identical size, shape, and color.”
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/09/24/2-word-sign-in-car-gets-man-fined/
from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2016/09/23/2-word-sign-in-car-gets-man-fined/
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