Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego (1980)
- Docket
- 80-195
- Decided
- 1980-01-01
Summary
Question: Does a city ban on "offsite" outdoor advertising signs violate First and Fourteenth Amendment provisions for free speech? Conclusion: Yes. Justice Byron White wrote the opinion for a 6-3 court. The ban's exception allowing "onsite" advertising discriminated against noncommercial speech. It allowed businesses in commercial properties to interrupt city motorists so long as it was with their own messages yet barred noncommercial advertisers from causing the same level of interruption. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger dissented and viewed the "onsite" exception to the ban as "essentially negligible" rather than unconstitutional favoritism. However the Court held that affording "a greater degree of protection to commercial than to noncommercial speech" reversed the long-standing Court precedent to show greater deference to noncommercial speech.