## Facts

- A Missouri municipality adopted an ordinance broadly prohibiting most signs at private residences, while exempting limited categories such as residence identification, “for sale,” and certain safety warnings.
- The city justified the ordinance as preventing visual clutter, preserving aesthetics, and protecting property values.
- A homeowner displayed a 3' by 2' yard sign stating: “Say no to war in the Persian Gulf. Call Congress now.”
- After the sign disappeared and was replaced, it was knocked down again; police informed the homeowner the sign was prohibited under the ordinance.
- The homeowner sought a variance from the city council; the request was denied.
- The homeowner moved the sign to a window; the city then repealed and replaced the ordinance with a more detailed version that continued to prohibit many residential signs (including window signs) and expanded certain commercial exceptions.
- The homeowner sued municipal officials in federal court, alleging the ordinance violated the First Amendment.
- The district court enjoined enforcement and held the ordinance unconstitutional; the court of appeals affirmed; the Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether a municipal ordinance that broadly bans most residential signs, subject to limited exceptions, violates the First Amendment by unduly restricting protected speech.
2. Whether such a sign ban can be sustained as a content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation when it largely forecloses residential signs as a means of communication.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the judgment invalidating the ordinance.
- The Court held the ordinance violated the First Amendment because it almost completely foreclosed a unique and important medium of expression—signs displayed at one’s residence.
- The Court assumed, without deciding, that the ordinance could be treated as content neutral, but concluded it still suppressed too much protected speech.
- The Court rejected the city’s argument that alternative channels (such as handbills and newspapers) adequately substituted for residential signs.
- Justice O’Connor concurred separately, stressing that content-based favoritism in sign exceptions is especially suspect.

## Legal Principles

- Government may regulate signs under its police power, but sign regulations necessarily burden communication and are subject to First Amendment limits.
- Even a purportedly content-neutral regulation is unconstitutional if it effectively eliminates a traditional, distinct, and important medium of expression.
- Speech from the home receives special protection; displaying a sign on one’s own residence conveys a message tied to the speaker’s identity that cannot be replicated fully by other methods.
- A time, place, and manner justification fails where alternatives are not adequate substitutes and the regulation is not sufficiently tailored to address legitimate concerns such as safety or physical obstruction.
- Legitimate interests in aesthetics and property values do not justify a sweeping residential sign ban when narrower restrictions could address those interests.

## Conclusion

The Court held that a broad prohibition on residential signs, even if treated as content neutral, violates the First Amendment when it largely removes an inexpensive, convenient, and distinctive method for political, religious, and personal expression from the home.


City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43 (1994)