Summary
The Eleventh Circuit reviews a First Amendment challenge to Daytona Beach Ordinance No. 19-27, which broadly restricts panhandling. The court holds that seven challenged provisions impose unconstitutional content-based restrictions that fail strict scrutiny, while the plaintiffs lack standing to challenge the remaining provisions. It also holds that the district court’s declaratory judgment and injunction were overbroad, affirms the damages award, and affirms in part and vacates in part.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the plaintiffs established Article III standing to challenge each individual provision of the anti-panhandling ordinance.
- Whether the challenged ordinance provisions regulate protected speech and are content-based under the First Amendment.
- Whether the challenged provisions survive strict scrutiny.
- Whether the district court's declaratory judgment and injunction were impermissibly broad, including because the injunction operated universally and covered provisions for which particular plaintiffs lacked standing.
- Whether the stipulated $80,000 damages award should be affirmed.
Holdings
- A plaintiff challenging multiple provisions of a law must establish standing separately for each challenged provision and each form of relief; standing cannot be established in gross.
- The plaintiffs conclusively established standing to challenge §§ 66-1(c)(1), (c)(3)(a)-(b), (c)(3)(g)-(h), (c)(4)(a), and (c)(4)(i), but did not conclusively establish standing to challenge §§ 66-1(c)(3)(c)-(f) and (c)(4)(b)-(h).
- Panhandling constitutes speech within the protection of the First Amendment.
- The challenged provisions are facially content-based because they single out requests for immediate donations and do not regulate solicitation evenhandedly.
- The seven provisions for which at least one plaintiff established standing fail strict scrutiny and violate the First Amendment.
- The district court's declaration and injunction were overbroad because they covered provisions for which standing had not been established, and the injunction improperly operated universally against nonparties.
- The $80,000 damages award was affirmed because the parties stipulated that the plaintiffs were entitled to that amount if any ordinance provision was held unconstitutional, and seven provisions were held unconstitutional.
Key quotations
“For the most part, we too agree—the ordinance imposes content-based restrictions on the plaintiffs’ speech, and those restrictions fail strict scrutiny.” (3)
“But in CAMP, we rejected that sort of approach when we held that the plaintiff there didn’t have standing to challenge an entire ordinance simply because it had been injured by one of its provisions.” (15-16)
“A general regulation that applies “evenhandedly” to all forms of solicitation is considered content-neutral, whereas a solicitation regulation that further “discriminate[s] based on topic, subject matter, or viewpoint”—i.e., one that singles out particular types of solicitations—is content-based and presumptively unconstitutional.” (32)
“Taking stock, once again: Even if with the best of intentions, Daytona Beach has singled out a category of speech—requests for immediate donations—for disfavored treatment based on its communicative content.” (41)
“But that’s precisely the form and scope of relief the district court granted here; nothing in its order limited the injunction’s operation to the parties.” (47)
Factual background
Daytona Beach enacted Ordinance No. 19-27 after receiving complaints about panhandling and concerns about safety, sanitation, aesthetics, and aggressive conduct. The ordinance restricted aggressive panhandling citywide and prohibited ordinary panhandling in specified locations and under specified circumstances, including requests for immediate donations. The four plaintiffs regularly panhandled in Daytona Beach, had been threatened with arrest or arrested under the ordinance, and curtailed their speech because of enforcement.
Procedural history
The plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that 18 provisions of Daytona Beach Ordinance No. 19-27 violated the First Amendment. The district court granted partial summary judgment, declared the challenged provisions unconstitutional, permanently enjoined their enforcement, and entered final judgment awarding $80,000 under the parties' stipulation. The Eleventh Circuit held that the plaintiffs had standing to challenge seven provisions but had not conclusively established standing as to the other 11, affirmed the merits ruling as to the seven provisions, vacated the overbroad declarations and injunction, affirmed the damages award, and remanded.
Remand instructions
On remand, the district court must determine provision by provision whether each plaintiff lacks standing entirely, in which case the claim should be dismissed, or whether a genuine dispute regarding standing exists, in which case the issue should be resolved at trial. Any injunction must be limited to provisions and plaintiffs for which standing is established and may not operate against nonparties.