For the third time this month, a court has ruled in favor of digital billboards.
The Nevada Supreme Court, on September 16, denied Scenic Nevada’s request for a rehearing, effectively ending a long-running legal battle against digital billboards in Reno. Geoff Dornan of Nevada Appeal.com explains the Reno ordinance fight:
“The ordinance approved by voters in 2000 prohibited construction of new off-premises billboards. But nine years later, the city council passed two ordinances amending that initiative to set a cap on the total number of billboards and allowing owners to remove existing billboards and ‘bank’ a receipt allowing them to relocate or build a new display later. They also passed an ordinance allowing digital billboards. Scenic Nevada sued but the high court ruled against the group.”
Here is a copy of the Nevada ruling. nv-supreme-court
Meanwhile, Congressman Mark Amodei, R-NV, is using digital billboards in the Reno market in his campaign for re-election.
On September 15, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of digital billboards, overturning a local ban as unconstitutional suppression of free speech. The court said the record failed to demonstrate that the local ban furthered the governmental interest asserted by the local government (Township of Franklin).
On September 6, a federal appeals court rejected Scenic America’s attack on digital billboards (Scenic America v U.S. Department of Transportation et al). In 2013, Scenic America challenged federal Guidance on digital billboards issued in 2007. A federal judge dismissed the case, with prejudice, in 2014. Two years later, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the government, a “complete loss” for Scenic America according to published reports by legal scholars.
In the Scenic case, the out of home industry was represented by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA).
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