A Baton Rouge-based advertising company is suing a Kentucky county in federal court, alleging that the Lexington-Fayette government’s policies on regulating digital billboards are unconstitutional.
Lamar Advertising Co. filed the claim last month in the federal district court in the Eastern District of Kentucky. Recent court decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts show that the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government’s sign regulations violate the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit states.
Lamar had sought permission from the county government to transform 20 existing state billboards to updated digital signs. But the local government turned down the applications, based on a reading of sign rules that restricts such conversions due to both the identity of the messengers and the content of the messages, according to the complaint.
“Lamar challenges the distinction in the sign regulation between allowing digital displays for on-premises signs but prohibiting them for off-premises billboards,” the company said in a statement emailed to the Louisiana Record. “The LFUCG sign regulation allows a chosen group of speakers to utilize digital signs for their messages, but prohibits Lamar and its clients from utilizing digital signs to display their speech.”
The county government is in violation of the state and federal constitutions because it selects a group of speakers to use digital billboards to display content that is pre-approved by local officials, the claim states. Lamar suffered substantial damages because it was not among the selected individuals, according to the lawsuit.
“Recent decisions from the United States Supreme Court, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and the District Court for the Western District of Kentucky make it clear that these content-based and speaker-based distinctions are unconstitutional under the First and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution,” the Lamar statement says.
The litigation calls for the court to issue an injunction and a decision that strikes down the county’s sign regulations in their entirety.
Lamar has a digital billboard network nationwide that comprises more than 3,600 signs, according to the company.