Andrew Bryant Sheets v. Brandon Angelini, in Personal Capacity, and City of Punta Gorda

Summary

The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida ruled on defendants’ motion to dismiss Andrew Bryant Sheets’s claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 arising from enforcement of Punta Gorda’s noise ordinance against his amplified protest speech. The court held that Officer Brandon Angelini was entitled to qualified immunity on the First Amendment viewpoint-discrimination and retaliation claims, and dismissed the ordinance’s vagueness challenge. The facial challenges based on unbridled discretion and overbreadth survived, so the motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part.

Holdings

1. Officer Angelini is entitled to qualified immunity because Sheets did not identify Supreme Court, Eleventh Circuit, or Florida Supreme Court precedent clearly establishing that citing a protester who used an electronically amplified bullhorn audible beyond 100 feet under the City's distance-based noise ordinance violated the First Amendment.
2. The facial challenge survives dismissal insofar as it alleges that the ordinance operates as a prior restraint and gives the City unbridled discretion over approval of special events without precise and objective standards.
3. The vagueness challenge fails because the ordinance gives adequate notice by prohibiting electronically amplified sound that is plainly audible 100 feet away and provides an objective distance-based standard that limits arbitrary enforcement.
4. The overbreadth claim survives dismissal because Defendants did not present a specific argument challenging the sufficiency of that claim.

Questions Presented

1. Whether qualified immunity required dismissal of Sheets's First Amendment viewpoint-discrimination and retaliation claims against Officer Angelini.
2. Whether the City's noise ordinance facially violates the First Amendment by vesting unbridled discretion in officials through its special-event approval exception.
3. Whether the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague because it uses the phrase plainly audible and a 100-foot standard.
4. Whether the ordinance is facially overbroad because it allegedly prohibits or chills a substantial amount of protected speech in traditional public forums.

Disposition

other