Legal Case Summary

Thank you everyone for your indulgence. Mr. Is it Romani or Am? Darminio. I'm sorry. Darminio. Romani. Still I guess good morning. May I please the court? It's good end of this career. Lou Garminio, Price Michelin and Darminio for the appellate and I'm observing three minutes of my time for a bottle. I guess the case is about several things but the critical and the larger level is what's the level of proof required by a municipality and a first amendment challenge, especially at the summary judgment. We have made all praise. No evidence. As in Metro media and just come in and said you know we know what you 95% like right now. And the last thing we need in more or less to have this highway as bad as it may be now. Flashed with we can't say plastic or four but let's say flash through with advertising. So we're just going to say it may be bad but we have to draw the line somewhere no more billboards. Under Metro media what would be wrong with that? Clearly no good. The first Metro media was a case where it was stipulated facts and the court there specifically said well there was really no evidence. The parties didn't really come up with evidence either way

. And look at the New Jersey cases. No versus staff. If they can make an argument to ban all billboards based upon just looking at 295 without any empirical studies and the cases said they don't need empirical evidence. Here they got empirical evidence and were into the age old statistical debate about the difference between correlation and causation. I would disagree with that point that they don't need any evidence. I mean the the written case versus play time. I love the names of all these adult books. We can tell we can tell we need these. There's said that there had to be some evidence that there had to be some studies. They didn't have to be a study of the town but there had to be some relevant studies. Well on the aesthetics point though, Mr. Derminio. Let me read you something from Metro media and have your spot. This is the language of the plurality opinion. It is not speculative to recognize that billboards by their very nature, wherever located in, however constructive can be perceived as an aesthetic harm. And then it goes on later and says such aesthetic judgments are necessarily subjective, defying objective evaluation. And for that reason must be carefully scrutinized to see if they are only a public rationalization of an impermissible purpose. But there's no claim in this case that there's an ulterior motive to suppress the speech

. Now when I read that I understand the Supreme Court to be saying in the absence of some evidence not brought forth by the government, not brought forth by not Laurel, but brought forth by somebody like your client interstate that there's a nefarious speech killing you. And then the fact that there's a mere legal purpose that in the absence of that, just as a matter of law, billboards can be viewed as an aesthetic harm. How is that an incorrect understanding of what the Supreme Court said? You're right, that's never been the case. In the subsequent cases, if you look at a bell followed, a bell versus staffer, which is a New Jersey case, it followed by Metro media. And Justice Hamlet, there specifically said that a municipality can't just wrap itself up in the first amendment. A municipality can't wrap itself up in just aesthetics and traffic safety. Let me read something else from Metro media. This is from Page 508. If the city has a sufficient basis for believing that the billboards for traffic hazards and our unattractive, then obviously the most direct and perhaps the only effective approach to solving the problems they create is to prohibit them. And I know you're going to work for the language sufficient basis. Let me go back to Brenton, which you mentioned a while ago. With the court said the ban is okay so long as the evidence we light upon is reasonably believed to be relevant to the problem the city addresses. It doesn't have to be airtight and there can be a battle of experts on each side. But as long as the city reasonably believes its own inquiry, why isn't that enough? And that's a lot of the way I am. You just wrote me a second. So the point is that there's more to it dawned on me to extend this year arguing that where and I think this is what you're arguing. Here you've got a study on one side, a study on the other side, and you're making some at least a moment, some very valid, I think attacks on some of their studies that some of my really epoxy for busyness of the intersection because that's what we put the billboards. It doesn't necessarily the causation versus correlation

. In fact, you have more accidents there. It may just be a measure of how busy the intersection is not the fact billboards are there. But even if that's true, you're saying it's a question of fact. If we did that point then why aren't we turning fact binders, judges and juries into local legislators and zoning boys because it's then the fact binders that's going to have to wait. The quality of the evidence and determine whether or not the aesthetics are really going to be sufficiently diminished. But I'll in a fringe and fringe and the non commercial but nevertheless protected, I mean on the commercial speech. It seems to me the unobwaiteable we sort of your argument is that judges and juries become zoning boards. No, they don't, Your Honor. The zoning board is responsible for making factual determinations based on certain specific municipal land use low requirements and the like. And the legislature's got to make constitutional decisions and the courts just review them and that's what we're saying. And like I'd like, I know I'm going to seize on the issue. Well, yeah, but the constitutional is based on some rational evidence. And they have to have the cases talk about plausible basis. They talk about reasonable basis. They talk about sufficient evidence. That's the Metro Alliance and MetroMedia talks about that. But what MetroMedia talks about it is undoubtedly the case that this that these billboards can be viewed as an aesthetic harm and Vincent, which was not a plurality opinion, said, quote, in MetroMedia, the court considered the city's interest in avoiding visual clutter and seven justices explicitly concluded that this interest was sufficient to justify prohibition on billboards. We reaffirmed the conclusion of the majority in MetroMedia

. But then you would be taking the position. I guess and it's not a position that other courts have taken. I think the nice circuit takes that position. I'm just reading a language from the United States Supreme Court. What are we supposed to do with that? But there are other cases that have not taken that position on the basis that it still is a matter that you have to individually each time come up with sufficient basis. You have to look at the look at the look out. What is the sufficient basis? Because in the edinfield, the sufficient basis was some quantum of evidence behind this unbelievable that was sufficient. Some quantum evidence behind its own belief. We have 37 studies. Some of them are flawed, but not all of them are flawed. Even if all of them were flawed, they would still have some quantum evidence behind their own belief. It's a reasonable conclusion based upon those studies. But it seems to me that the Supreme Court has told us in the edinfield and MetroMedia in playtime that as long as we're not talking about in this case. In improper motive, that you really have to refer to what the township views in protecting its own aesthetics. Safety is maybe a better argument for you because there may be the studies do undermine their arguments. But aesthetics. It's got to say before we came out here, your argument seems to be, look, 295 is already a hell of a hole. So what difference does it make if we just slap up some Dr

. Pepper Bill boys? Because it's already an ice war. That's all we said. We said with proper that it's an industrial air. It has industrial uses on both sides and that with proper spacing, it would be appropriate to have after advertising. Well, that's a much nicer way of saying it, Mr. Dernan. But haven't isn't what you've been arguing at what Mr. Calcars expert report says amounts to the very same thing that this is an industrial zone. So it's already got problems. This won't make it any worse. I mean, that's, that's, then that sounds like Mr. Calcars setting himself up to replace the judgment of the city planners and the city zoning officials. Why is his different opinion entitled to so much weight that it requires a jury trial to decide whether as a matter of fact, 295 is so bad that this can't make it worse? I would go back to that even the the metronomeDIA case talks about a sufficient basis for all of them. Now, in that case, based on those facts and those evidence, our position would be is that the, in the stipulated facts, it wasn't, it was like after a trial. And we're in a summary judgment stage. The court said that, okay, this makes sense for us. This is reasonable. We won't, we won't disturb it

. But that would then rule out any challenge by any to any order. And there have been subsequent cases, and the order of some time, any any billboard order in and so on. That's what I mean. Excuse me. I should have said that. No, you could. Could you not under metronomeDIA make the case if you had evidence for it that they're banning billboards because they don't like the non-commercial message we've got. Or they're trying to stamp out speech. I mean, they were careful to say in the absence of evidence of an ulterior motive that's inappropriate. We're into judgments about aesthetics and those defy objective determination. I mean, what is the language of metronomeDIA if not saying we're going to give the governing body. The power to make a judgment about what isn't aesthetically pleasing for their township. But is could metronomeDIA mean that any aesthetic judgment could possibly be? Is it only as such and could it reasonably mean after all these years and all the cases that they're having cases with metronomeDIA in place that have, you know, knocked down billboard bands. That say of a location in a heavily urban area where there's entirely industrial and that it would be appropriate to out there advertising. There's no outdoor advertising in the area. Would that mean that a total ban in that area would be improper without the ability to challenge it. If that's what it is, then, you know, I guess we're not going anywhere with this argument. Well, let's look at the track piece for just a second

. The Supreme Court in metronomeDIA talks about palpably false factual foundations being insufficient. Is that the right standard? I mean, if you say what Meloro relied on was palpably false, then you can attack them. But is that the standard you have to mean? I would say the standard is still insufficient evidence. And if you look at what the court, what does palpably false language mean then? I mean, if your honest are accepting that it has to be palpably false for traffic, I mean. I'm just asking you what this, I'm reading to you a language from the United States Supreme Court and asking you what we're to make of it. This is the language. They're quoting railway express with approval. They say it is the judgment of the local authorities that it does have a relation that is traffic problems. To the thing that's being challenged. And nothing has been advanced which shows that to be quote palpably false. If I have to meet that standard in this case, and Judge Kuhlberg didn't say I had to, but if I had to meet that standard in this case, I still could look at the studies that Judge Kuhlberg relied on and indicate that indeed, you know, one of the studies, you would attack that sense, the applicability of the study. One of the study wasn't even available to us. The Milwaukee County study wasn't a study that had anything to do with a static billboard. It was textual messages. Actually, that signs a legal in New Jersey because it changed every five minutes. Two of the studies actually we complied with. And that's part of our problem too. The visual study had to do with a cone of vision

. You have to have a 20 cone of vision in the forward roadway. We complied with that when we did our specific study of the locations. The 100 car national national naturalistic study said that it shouldn't have your eye, your eyes off the roadway for more than two minutes. That's a study that favors us. That's not palpably false, but they actually favor us. And we use that and we provided expert testimony with Mr. Simoff that actually showed that you could have five to six seconds on these roadways that were out of control. That's a 20 degree angle in the forward roadway. That's why it seems to me the aesthetics. It's a little bit easier for you to get out the safety issue. The aesthetics one. I don't know how you get that. If they have a good faith reason to believe and no one here is arguing that they're acting in bad faith. They have a good faith reason to believe that the stretch of highway is going to be better without billboards than with it. That's almost like saying it seems to me it's harder than the summer than it is in the winter. How can you argue about that? But even if we say that there are appropriate areas, we say that there are the ways. We argue that there are ways of framing and ordinance. Even their aesthetic expert, which was their planner, though we didn't want billboards, not saying that he did, did agree that you could

. So there are less restrictive means because there's other prongs of that test. The central Hudson test to meet the concerns that they had with regard to aesthetics. So maybe that becomes the argument. Since the law allows them, the first member doesn't prohibit them from banning all billboards given the necessary threshold is showing. The whole less intrusive means in carbon. That's not really part of this test. But even if the ban is, where is then the alternative means of communication? I mean, it's all that. And billboards do that. Excuse me. It may not be an alternative that would give you billboard space, but there's no constitutional right to put a message on billboards. They can't keep you from putting your message on billboards in the discriminatory way. And when I let you know that they are, they have to have some quantum of evidence looking at Ed and field to believe that what they're doing addresses their concern. They've got 37 studies. Let's assume that 90% of the studies are the lousy studies done by people who don't understand statistics anymore than I do. And therefore, basically they're invalid. You sort of have two or three valid studies left that will give them the quantum of evidence they need to say it's safer without billboards. And as bad as I may look now, it looks better now that would billboards, but you deserve some time. I don't mean to send that you that way, but let's see if he responds to me

. I'm going to rebuttal. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Norman. Good afternoon. The one fact that I think is very unique in the first amendment, non-commercial speech context is the, the metronome of cases been referred to as the law of billboards. And the Ed and field requirement of quantum of proof was not required in metronome and I think it's essentially an exception car about from Ed and field. That it was proceeding metronome media that was already enough instances of legislative judgment and judicial decisions that it was no doubt that that that was a substitute for satisfying the third and fourth prongs of such lots. Mr. Norman, who's got the burden of proof to show there are or are not adequate alternative avenues of expression? Well, if you read metronome media, they do engage in analysis of alternative forms of communication and the context of it is not whether or not you can have a billboard. The question is, is do you have reasonable alternatives for advertised by science? And who's got the burden of either showing that there is or there isn't? Why would the facial showing has to be made by the party making the challenge? And of course, Matt Laurel's responses is there's nothing in the township ordinance that prohibits advertising and on-premise sign and that that was the holding in metronome media. They said that the town went far enough. They decided to allow some signs which are on-premise signs but to control the sign proliferation issue, they said you can't have off-premise signs. And that's essentially that's coming right out of metronome media itself. On a second point, if you look at the specific context here, there's nine towns that surround Mount Laurel township. Five of them and our expert reported 43 A of the appendix or 44 to 46 A but we presented our planner did a study and five of the nine surrounding towns, immediately around the periphery of Mount Laurel allow billboards either as a permitted use or a conditional use. So that's one relevant factual piece of evidence that there are alternatives. And his study also showed that Mount Laurel is traversed by St. Highway Route 73 and St. Highway Route 38. There's 18 billboards in South Jersey on St. Highway Route 73 in the vicinity and 14 billboards on Route 38. Now there's two billboards in all of Mount Laurel town with 40,000 people and that's because the town 25 years ago adopted the billboard band. So you know, Mount Laurel has planned engaged in the planning of controlling sign proliferation. They've been doing it for a long time and there is alternatives. The billboard can go to other municipalities. The other evidence at 74 A of the appendix is interstates business itself. They have our planner did a study of all the billboards in Burlington County and found and we obtained this through discovery that interstate has 27 sites of billboards in Burlington County. And there's 36 billboards at those 27 sites. So it's beyond a beyond question that there is opportunities to build to seek billboards. You can lobby other municipalities. That's an option. And with that, I guess someone is it really relevant to say your alternative means of expression in Mount Laurel is to leave Mount Laurel. And it seems sort of like the right thing is that Mount Laurel can ban the speech and if you don't like it, there's all these neighboring townships you can go to to speak in. Well, my own Mount Laurel have an obligation to have alternative avenues of free expression? Well, my analysis of the case law, I believe it was in your opinion in the Philadelphia case, is that the alternatives, the rights of alternatives do not belong to the billboard company

. And his study also showed that Mount Laurel is traversed by St. Highway Route 73 and St. Highway Route 38. There's 18 billboards in South Jersey on St. Highway Route 73 in the vicinity and 14 billboards on Route 38. Now there's two billboards in all of Mount Laurel town with 40,000 people and that's because the town 25 years ago adopted the billboard band. So you know, Mount Laurel has planned engaged in the planning of controlling sign proliferation. They've been doing it for a long time and there is alternatives. The billboard can go to other municipalities. The other evidence at 74 A of the appendix is interstates business itself. They have our planner did a study of all the billboards in Burlington County and found and we obtained this through discovery that interstate has 27 sites of billboards in Burlington County. And there's 36 billboards at those 27 sites. So it's beyond a beyond question that there is opportunities to build to seek billboards. You can lobby other municipalities. That's an option. And with that, I guess someone is it really relevant to say your alternative means of expression in Mount Laurel is to leave Mount Laurel. And it seems sort of like the right thing is that Mount Laurel can ban the speech and if you don't like it, there's all these neighboring townships you can go to to speak in. Well, my own Mount Laurel have an obligation to have alternative avenues of free expression? Well, my analysis of the case law, I believe it was in your opinion in the Philadelphia case, is that the alternatives, the rights of alternatives do not belong to the billboard company. But it's the right of the advertiser. If if AmeriHealth wants to put a sign on a billboard, what rights does AmeriHealth have to advertise in Mount Laurel Township? They can advertise in the newspaper, they can advertise on the internet. There's all kinds of avenues on buses. There's plenty of media in the year 2012 to allow for advertising, some of which didn't exist in the early 1983 when Metro Media was decided. So, you know, I think in a historical context, I think the issue of alternative available forms of communication, I think take on less importance in today's society than existed back in 1983. I think in the record about whether or not someone going to or from Mount Laurel or even living within Mount Laurel would be likely to see one of these other locations and one of the other. To me, New Jersey is just a mess of highways and then they have these disasters waiting to happen called jug handles. When in order to turn left you got to turn right and you can go with it, I get lost. But to me, it would seem that, I don't know if the record reflects it, that in terms of alternative advertising, the record may reflect that the nature of the layout of the highway system, especially attractive in the interstate, such that you're asked likely to see a billboard in one of these other counties as it would be if it were posted in Mount Laurel. But because that's not in the record then that's not something we can consider. It comes with alternative form. Actually, I think if you lived in Mount Laurel and there were billboards on 2.95 and let's say it took 2.95 to and from work, I would think after you drive it 300 something days a week, you'll tune out what's on the billboard. You really, it'll just become background music to your eyes. It's no traffic safety issue, right? Yes. Well, it's, you know, but there are those who traverse 2.95 who are not from Mount Laurel and they may be affected from a traffic state safety standpoint

. But it's the right of the advertiser. If if AmeriHealth wants to put a sign on a billboard, what rights does AmeriHealth have to advertise in Mount Laurel Township? They can advertise in the newspaper, they can advertise on the internet. There's all kinds of avenues on buses. There's plenty of media in the year 2012 to allow for advertising, some of which didn't exist in the early 1983 when Metro Media was decided. So, you know, I think in a historical context, I think the issue of alternative available forms of communication, I think take on less importance in today's society than existed back in 1983. I think in the record about whether or not someone going to or from Mount Laurel or even living within Mount Laurel would be likely to see one of these other locations and one of the other. To me, New Jersey is just a mess of highways and then they have these disasters waiting to happen called jug handles. When in order to turn left you got to turn right and you can go with it, I get lost. But to me, it would seem that, I don't know if the record reflects it, that in terms of alternative advertising, the record may reflect that the nature of the layout of the highway system, especially attractive in the interstate, such that you're asked likely to see a billboard in one of these other counties as it would be if it were posted in Mount Laurel. But because that's not in the record then that's not something we can consider. It comes with alternative form. Actually, I think if you lived in Mount Laurel and there were billboards on 2.95 and let's say it took 2.95 to and from work, I would think after you drive it 300 something days a week, you'll tune out what's on the billboard. You really, it'll just become background music to your eyes. It's no traffic safety issue, right? Yes. Well, it's, you know, but there are those who traverse 2.95 who are not from Mount Laurel and they may be affected from a traffic state safety standpoint. We presented the studies, the quantum of studies. And the reason Mount Laurel presented those studies was the decision in the Cherry Hill case was the law of the District Court of New Jersey in 2009. And we had Mount Laurel had a comply with that, although it was of the view that we didn't, it did not believe that it had to supply the studies. Was it a mistake for the District Court in this case to require evidence? I mean, the court relied on if I'm not mistaken, a New Jersey case, the Delberts and Stasher of Stas. Yes. And said we want you to come forward with evidence, Laurel. And I think it was a mistake. And the reason is, and I actually brought the bell case with me because there's an excerpt in it, which is right on point, in Bell, the Supreme Court of New Jersey emphasized that, that the particular sign in Stafford, not only prohibited non-commercial speech, it also prohibited political speech, free speech. And that makes that case a little bit different than our case, which had our case out of the substitution clause. So our case is content neutral. The case in Bell, the Stafford was involved. The Supreme Court found that it constrained free speech, political speech. And if you read the New Jersey State case law in Bell and in the subsequent cases on billboards, interpreting Bell, they really impose almost a strict scrutiny type test and a least restrictive means test. Now, if you read those opinions, we think that's wrong. The Mr. Derminio in response to some questions we were firing at him said, Metro Media, and I'm sure he'll correct me if I misunderstood. But I understood him to be saying, you really can't take Metro Media to mean that aesthetic judgments are beyond all question. Because we have later cases that say you need some evidence

. We presented the studies, the quantum of studies. And the reason Mount Laurel presented those studies was the decision in the Cherry Hill case was the law of the District Court of New Jersey in 2009. And we had Mount Laurel had a comply with that, although it was of the view that we didn't, it did not believe that it had to supply the studies. Was it a mistake for the District Court in this case to require evidence? I mean, the court relied on if I'm not mistaken, a New Jersey case, the Delberts and Stasher of Stas. Yes. And said we want you to come forward with evidence, Laurel. And I think it was a mistake. And the reason is, and I actually brought the bell case with me because there's an excerpt in it, which is right on point, in Bell, the Supreme Court of New Jersey emphasized that, that the particular sign in Stafford, not only prohibited non-commercial speech, it also prohibited political speech, free speech. And that makes that case a little bit different than our case, which had our case out of the substitution clause. So our case is content neutral. The case in Bell, the Stafford was involved. The Supreme Court found that it constrained free speech, political speech. And if you read the New Jersey State case law in Bell and in the subsequent cases on billboards, interpreting Bell, they really impose almost a strict scrutiny type test and a least restrictive means test. Now, if you read those opinions, we think that's wrong. The Mr. Derminio in response to some questions we were firing at him said, Metro Media, and I'm sure he'll correct me if I misunderstood. But I understood him to be saying, you really can't take Metro Media to mean that aesthetic judgments are beyond all question. Because we have later cases that say you need some evidence. Is he right or wrong about that if I've understood him correctly? I think that Metro Media, the language and Metro Media itself on aesthetics essentially says it's elementary that billboards by their nature have an aesthetic impact. So if there is a legislative judgment by the town to say we do not want billboards at our town, I think the courts need to respect that. Well, if that's true, then I have two questions. One, what are you saying in response to Mr. Derminio's point that there are later cases that seem to imply you do have to come forward with evidence? And second, what was it that motivated the district court here to say, give me some evidence? Okay, I could see the argument that a town relying on aesthetics, the band billboards, works in a town like Mount Laurel where they've kept them out by zoning for 25 years and the character of the town is billboard free. But if you change the setting, let's say tomorrow we went, the setting was Camden and someone in the city of Camden decided no more billboards. And if you drive over the bridges, there's plenty of billboards. I mean, just from that sort of background context, if the rationale for Camden was aesthetics and if the character of Camden was such that there already exists many billboards, well then the aesthetic rationale for the prohibition really doesn't fly. And that's true in any zoning case. So they get to the point where they want to rein things in. So they've got this rash billboards all of the place and they found you say enough is enough. How would a local agency go about saying we were saturated, we can't have any more billboards? Well, I think that's supportable too. I guess the question is, if the character of the municipality is such that there's already so many billboards that there's just no, I just think it's a tougher fight because once you allow them, I think that's if you read the New Jersey State Quartz decisions, if you have a zone that allows billboards, they actually are much tougher on the towns and the zones in their particular zones where they don't allow them, they say we already allow them here. Why don't you allow that? I think is our police can be sure from wrong that the character is commercial and industrial, not character is billboards obviously not. The character is commercial and industrial. Therefore, your aesthetic concern is really not advanced by putting up billboards because of the nature of the community that we want to put these billboards up in. Well, that's a subjective opinion. If you took a drive up by $295, you would also see that it is very tree

. Is he right or wrong about that if I've understood him correctly? I think that Metro Media, the language and Metro Media itself on aesthetics essentially says it's elementary that billboards by their nature have an aesthetic impact. So if there is a legislative judgment by the town to say we do not want billboards at our town, I think the courts need to respect that. Well, if that's true, then I have two questions. One, what are you saying in response to Mr. Derminio's point that there are later cases that seem to imply you do have to come forward with evidence? And second, what was it that motivated the district court here to say, give me some evidence? Okay, I could see the argument that a town relying on aesthetics, the band billboards, works in a town like Mount Laurel where they've kept them out by zoning for 25 years and the character of the town is billboard free. But if you change the setting, let's say tomorrow we went, the setting was Camden and someone in the city of Camden decided no more billboards. And if you drive over the bridges, there's plenty of billboards. I mean, just from that sort of background context, if the rationale for Camden was aesthetics and if the character of Camden was such that there already exists many billboards, well then the aesthetic rationale for the prohibition really doesn't fly. And that's true in any zoning case. So they get to the point where they want to rein things in. So they've got this rash billboards all of the place and they found you say enough is enough. How would a local agency go about saying we were saturated, we can't have any more billboards? Well, I think that's supportable too. I guess the question is, if the character of the municipality is such that there's already so many billboards that there's just no, I just think it's a tougher fight because once you allow them, I think that's if you read the New Jersey State Quartz decisions, if you have a zone that allows billboards, they actually are much tougher on the towns and the zones in their particular zones where they don't allow them, they say we already allow them here. Why don't you allow that? I think is our police can be sure from wrong that the character is commercial and industrial, not character is billboards obviously not. The character is commercial and industrial. Therefore, your aesthetic concern is really not advanced by putting up billboards because of the nature of the community that we want to put these billboards up in. Well, that's a subjective opinion. If you took a drive up by $295, you would also see that it is very tree. It doesn't have an urban type of usecape when you're driving on I295 up and through Mount Laurel. It really doesn't present that kind of. I guess we're not going to intrude in the areas of $295 where the trees are, but there's plenty of areas that $295 were in nature of the community and the nature of the surrounding. Well, that sort of analysis is, I think that's some of the analysis in Justice Brennan's concurrence where he said you need to go into a site specific analysis. The only problem with that is the seven judges told him he was wrong. And that's in the taxpayers for Vincent. And several other circuit court decisions that essentially you don't, I mean that view was rejected that you have to do a site specific analysis to say, well, where do they want to permit? Where does billboard company want to erect the billboards? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Your honor. Just on several points. Looking at the end and field versus fain case, if you would look at our response, our briefing response. I mean, our position there was that in a way that was after Metro media and at modified Metro media because it said you had to come up with a reasonable basis with or with evidence to support a complete band. And that's where I think we would hang our hat on. But again, this is some quantum. So, whatever that standard is, is that it's not just a slam dunk. It could not just say, you know, aesthetics. It's not easy

. It doesn't have an urban type of usecape when you're driving on I295 up and through Mount Laurel. It really doesn't present that kind of. I guess we're not going to intrude in the areas of $295 where the trees are, but there's plenty of areas that $295 were in nature of the community and the nature of the surrounding. Well, that sort of analysis is, I think that's some of the analysis in Justice Brennan's concurrence where he said you need to go into a site specific analysis. The only problem with that is the seven judges told him he was wrong. And that's in the taxpayers for Vincent. And several other circuit court decisions that essentially you don't, I mean that view was rejected that you have to do a site specific analysis to say, well, where do they want to permit? Where does billboard company want to erect the billboards? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Your honor. Just on several points. Looking at the end and field versus fain case, if you would look at our response, our briefing response. I mean, our position there was that in a way that was after Metro media and at modified Metro media because it said you had to come up with a reasonable basis with or with evidence to support a complete band. And that's where I think we would hang our hat on. But again, this is some quantum. So, whatever that standard is, is that it's not just a slam dunk. It could not just say, you know, aesthetics. It's not easy. And if you look at, please look at the bill case, because though Bell did site Metro media, Justice Handler also said in that case that, you know, we're talking about some very valuable rights here. It's commercial speech, but it's still a fundamental right. And they are the typical deference that you give to municipalities with regard to zoning matters doesn't hold true. And so he had a separate basis for that based on based apart from Metro media and on an on fundamental. If the Supreme Court of New Jersey and Bell says you need more, but the Supreme Court of the United States says you don't. But, sure, what do we fall for rather than you do? But nevertheless, I would still rely on Ennefield. And I wanted to correct that. Sixth Circuit just within the last month, September 10, 2012, in the case called Bench, billboard company versus City of Toledo said. City of the City of Medicine, it's burdened at the third prong of the central Hudson inquiry. By relying on the Supreme Court's finding in Metro media that the accumulated common sense judgments of local law makers and reviewing courts have established that billboards are real and substantial hazards to traffic safety. That finding may substitute for the independent quantum of evidence that the city would otherwise have to put forth to establish that its regulatory regime addresses a concrete harm. And therefore, we need not decide whether the city would have met its burden to do so. So I take you, you take issue with six circuits. Right. And I guess this court would have to see if it agrees with that in this situation because I mean how valuable are these rights when you get right down to it. But a couple of other quick points, they mentioned this swap out situation. And I do want to say there that this is where you can swap out a non-commercial message sign, let's say a message sign for an on-premise commercial sign. And I think we've got to say there that the emperor has no clothes

. And if you look at, please look at the bill case, because though Bell did site Metro media, Justice Handler also said in that case that, you know, we're talking about some very valuable rights here. It's commercial speech, but it's still a fundamental right. And they are the typical deference that you give to municipalities with regard to zoning matters doesn't hold true. And so he had a separate basis for that based on based apart from Metro media and on an on fundamental. If the Supreme Court of New Jersey and Bell says you need more, but the Supreme Court of the United States says you don't. But, sure, what do we fall for rather than you do? But nevertheless, I would still rely on Ennefield. And I wanted to correct that. Sixth Circuit just within the last month, September 10, 2012, in the case called Bench, billboard company versus City of Toledo said. City of the City of Medicine, it's burdened at the third prong of the central Hudson inquiry. By relying on the Supreme Court's finding in Metro media that the accumulated common sense judgments of local law makers and reviewing courts have established that billboards are real and substantial hazards to traffic safety. That finding may substitute for the independent quantum of evidence that the city would otherwise have to put forth to establish that its regulatory regime addresses a concrete harm. And therefore, we need not decide whether the city would have met its burden to do so. So I take you, you take issue with six circuits. Right. And I guess this court would have to see if it agrees with that in this situation because I mean how valuable are these rights when you get right down to it. But a couple of other quick points, they mentioned this swap out situation. And I do want to say there that this is where you can swap out a non-commercial message sign, let's say a message sign for an on-premise commercial sign. And I think we've got to say there that the emperor has no clothes. I mean, we gave examples of, you know, will the owner of the Mount Laurel Mall, you know, put up take off target, take off Betpath and beyond, take off all these companies that it has leases with to put up when we gave several examples of billboards and anti-abortion billboards and anti-president Obama billboard and anti-approgun billboard. Would they actually put that up? Would they actually do those sorts of things? That is a total sham. And that I think we have challenged in our papers. We've talked about cases where there's a false sense, the exon case, the sprint case in New Jersey World, the Florida case, where we talk about for at least commercial speech, that's a sham. And that should be considered and that should be knocked out. Again, if the Supreme Court is saying that that's an effective means of meeting at least the burden for commercial speech, then the emperor doesn't have any clothes. By the way, we did challenge every single study, even the ones of all these studies, and I took his position, Mr. Little Warning, their experts as well, you know, I know these studies are kind of all over the place. But he said that there were four studies that he thought were valid. And some of them are the same that the court picked out. One, we agreed the natural study, the 100 car crash study, and we complied with 100 car crash study. The other one, Madigan Highland, is a correlation study, and we did discuss that study. The other ones, the Fosmin and the Weiner review of them, we also took a part by our expert witness on a statistical basis, on the bad input. It took every accident, it wasn't a similar roadway to ours. We, we, this is us every study. And it's very interesting, the study that they'll be doing so quickly. Even if we accepted what you're saying about the traffic piece of this, can you win if the aesthetic piece still stands in your way? In other words, is it enough for them to say, it's our aesthetic judgment, we've been doing this for 25 years, that it win regardless of whether the traffic studies are palpably false? Taking the traffic away, there still is aesthetic, there still is this aesthetic problem. I have to recognize that indeed aesthetics is still obviously a valid governmental purpose

. I mean, we gave examples of, you know, will the owner of the Mount Laurel Mall, you know, put up take off target, take off Betpath and beyond, take off all these companies that it has leases with to put up when we gave several examples of billboards and anti-abortion billboards and anti-president Obama billboard and anti-approgun billboard. Would they actually put that up? Would they actually do those sorts of things? That is a total sham. And that I think we have challenged in our papers. We've talked about cases where there's a false sense, the exon case, the sprint case in New Jersey World, the Florida case, where we talk about for at least commercial speech, that's a sham. And that should be considered and that should be knocked out. Again, if the Supreme Court is saying that that's an effective means of meeting at least the burden for commercial speech, then the emperor doesn't have any clothes. By the way, we did challenge every single study, even the ones of all these studies, and I took his position, Mr. Little Warning, their experts as well, you know, I know these studies are kind of all over the place. But he said that there were four studies that he thought were valid. And some of them are the same that the court picked out. One, we agreed the natural study, the 100 car crash study, and we complied with 100 car crash study. The other one, Madigan Highland, is a correlation study, and we did discuss that study. The other ones, the Fosmin and the Weiner review of them, we also took a part by our expert witness on a statistical basis, on the bad input. It took every accident, it wasn't a similar roadway to ours. We, we, this is us every study. And it's very interesting, the study that they'll be doing so quickly. Even if we accepted what you're saying about the traffic piece of this, can you win if the aesthetic piece still stands in your way? In other words, is it enough for them to say, it's our aesthetic judgment, we've been doing this for 25 years, that it win regardless of whether the traffic studies are palpably false? Taking the traffic away, there still is aesthetic, there still is this aesthetic problem. I have to recognize that indeed aesthetics is still obviously a valid governmental purpose. Standing on its own. Standing on its own would have to be a valid governmental purpose. And we did provide alternate locations, we provided locations, we provided pictures. We provided evidence, sufficient evidence to say that it's proper here. We provided alternate means. Mr. Parker's judgment. Well, but you're on the, we are talking about a summary judgment motion here. And there are cases, you know, it's in this district where, you know, we're so long as the evidence is, is, is not that challengeable as, you know, under a dog bird or any other claim, it should be considered. I mean, don't we get some benefit of the differences? I mean, one of the differences, for example, that's, in fact, that is the very question. Do you get the benefit of some inference that, because you hired an expert to say, I think this bill would look swell here, that that deserves to be over, overcoming the judgment of the town fathers and mothers that know they don't want a billboard there. It has to has some plausible basis. And that's what we're saying. And that's what we're saying. Saying that metronedia was, was modified by an infield to that, to that extent. And there still has to be some plausible basis, some reasonable basis for a total ban. Mr. Moneo, thank you very much

. Standing on its own. Standing on its own would have to be a valid governmental purpose. And we did provide alternate locations, we provided locations, we provided pictures. We provided evidence, sufficient evidence to say that it's proper here. We provided alternate means. Mr. Parker's judgment. Well, but you're on the, we are talking about a summary judgment motion here. And there are cases, you know, it's in this district where, you know, we're so long as the evidence is, is, is not that challengeable as, you know, under a dog bird or any other claim, it should be considered. I mean, don't we get some benefit of the differences? I mean, one of the differences, for example, that's, in fact, that is the very question. Do you get the benefit of some inference that, because you hired an expert to say, I think this bill would look swell here, that that deserves to be over, overcoming the judgment of the town fathers and mothers that know they don't want a billboard there. It has to has some plausible basis. And that's what we're saying. And that's what we're saying. Saying that metronedia was, was modified by an infield to that, to that extent. And there still has to be some plausible basis, some reasonable basis for a total ban. Mr. Moneo, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Your Honor. Very, very professional. I don't know, but we're sorry. Thank you. Thank you for your arguments and for your presentations in Greece. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That would be a nice to be.

Thank you everyone for your indulgence. Mr. Is it Romani or Am? Darminio. I'm sorry. Darminio. Romani. Still I guess good morning. May I please the court? It's good end of this career. Lou Garminio, Price Michelin and Darminio for the appellate and I'm observing three minutes of my time for a bottle. I guess the case is about several things but the critical and the larger level is what's the level of proof required by a municipality and a first amendment challenge, especially at the summary judgment. We have made all praise. No evidence. As in Metro media and just come in and said you know we know what you 95% like right now. And the last thing we need in more or less to have this highway as bad as it may be now. Flashed with we can't say plastic or four but let's say flash through with advertising. So we're just going to say it may be bad but we have to draw the line somewhere no more billboards. Under Metro media what would be wrong with that? Clearly no good. The first Metro media was a case where it was stipulated facts and the court there specifically said well there was really no evidence. The parties didn't really come up with evidence either way. And look at the New Jersey cases. No versus staff. If they can make an argument to ban all billboards based upon just looking at 295 without any empirical studies and the cases said they don't need empirical evidence. Here they got empirical evidence and were into the age old statistical debate about the difference between correlation and causation. I would disagree with that point that they don't need any evidence. I mean the the written case versus play time. I love the names of all these adult books. We can tell we can tell we need these. There's said that there had to be some evidence that there had to be some studies. They didn't have to be a study of the town but there had to be some relevant studies. Well on the aesthetics point though, Mr. Derminio. Let me read you something from Metro media and have your spot. This is the language of the plurality opinion. It is not speculative to recognize that billboards by their very nature, wherever located in, however constructive can be perceived as an aesthetic harm. And then it goes on later and says such aesthetic judgments are necessarily subjective, defying objective evaluation. And for that reason must be carefully scrutinized to see if they are only a public rationalization of an impermissible purpose. But there's no claim in this case that there's an ulterior motive to suppress the speech. Now when I read that I understand the Supreme Court to be saying in the absence of some evidence not brought forth by the government, not brought forth by not Laurel, but brought forth by somebody like your client interstate that there's a nefarious speech killing you. And then the fact that there's a mere legal purpose that in the absence of that, just as a matter of law, billboards can be viewed as an aesthetic harm. How is that an incorrect understanding of what the Supreme Court said? You're right, that's never been the case. In the subsequent cases, if you look at a bell followed, a bell versus staffer, which is a New Jersey case, it followed by Metro media. And Justice Hamlet, there specifically said that a municipality can't just wrap itself up in the first amendment. A municipality can't wrap itself up in just aesthetics and traffic safety. Let me read something else from Metro media. This is from Page 508. If the city has a sufficient basis for believing that the billboards for traffic hazards and our unattractive, then obviously the most direct and perhaps the only effective approach to solving the problems they create is to prohibit them. And I know you're going to work for the language sufficient basis. Let me go back to Brenton, which you mentioned a while ago. With the court said the ban is okay so long as the evidence we light upon is reasonably believed to be relevant to the problem the city addresses. It doesn't have to be airtight and there can be a battle of experts on each side. But as long as the city reasonably believes its own inquiry, why isn't that enough? And that's a lot of the way I am. You just wrote me a second. So the point is that there's more to it dawned on me to extend this year arguing that where and I think this is what you're arguing. Here you've got a study on one side, a study on the other side, and you're making some at least a moment, some very valid, I think attacks on some of their studies that some of my really epoxy for busyness of the intersection because that's what we put the billboards. It doesn't necessarily the causation versus correlation. In fact, you have more accidents there. It may just be a measure of how busy the intersection is not the fact billboards are there. But even if that's true, you're saying it's a question of fact. If we did that point then why aren't we turning fact binders, judges and juries into local legislators and zoning boys because it's then the fact binders that's going to have to wait. The quality of the evidence and determine whether or not the aesthetics are really going to be sufficiently diminished. But I'll in a fringe and fringe and the non commercial but nevertheless protected, I mean on the commercial speech. It seems to me the unobwaiteable we sort of your argument is that judges and juries become zoning boards. No, they don't, Your Honor. The zoning board is responsible for making factual determinations based on certain specific municipal land use low requirements and the like. And the legislature's got to make constitutional decisions and the courts just review them and that's what we're saying. And like I'd like, I know I'm going to seize on the issue. Well, yeah, but the constitutional is based on some rational evidence. And they have to have the cases talk about plausible basis. They talk about reasonable basis. They talk about sufficient evidence. That's the Metro Alliance and MetroMedia talks about that. But what MetroMedia talks about it is undoubtedly the case that this that these billboards can be viewed as an aesthetic harm and Vincent, which was not a plurality opinion, said, quote, in MetroMedia, the court considered the city's interest in avoiding visual clutter and seven justices explicitly concluded that this interest was sufficient to justify prohibition on billboards. We reaffirmed the conclusion of the majority in MetroMedia. But then you would be taking the position. I guess and it's not a position that other courts have taken. I think the nice circuit takes that position. I'm just reading a language from the United States Supreme Court. What are we supposed to do with that? But there are other cases that have not taken that position on the basis that it still is a matter that you have to individually each time come up with sufficient basis. You have to look at the look at the look out. What is the sufficient basis? Because in the edinfield, the sufficient basis was some quantum of evidence behind this unbelievable that was sufficient. Some quantum evidence behind its own belief. We have 37 studies. Some of them are flawed, but not all of them are flawed. Even if all of them were flawed, they would still have some quantum evidence behind their own belief. It's a reasonable conclusion based upon those studies. But it seems to me that the Supreme Court has told us in the edinfield and MetroMedia in playtime that as long as we're not talking about in this case. In improper motive, that you really have to refer to what the township views in protecting its own aesthetics. Safety is maybe a better argument for you because there may be the studies do undermine their arguments. But aesthetics. It's got to say before we came out here, your argument seems to be, look, 295 is already a hell of a hole. So what difference does it make if we just slap up some Dr. Pepper Bill boys? Because it's already an ice war. That's all we said. We said with proper that it's an industrial air. It has industrial uses on both sides and that with proper spacing, it would be appropriate to have after advertising. Well, that's a much nicer way of saying it, Mr. Dernan. But haven't isn't what you've been arguing at what Mr. Calcars expert report says amounts to the very same thing that this is an industrial zone. So it's already got problems. This won't make it any worse. I mean, that's, that's, then that sounds like Mr. Calcars setting himself up to replace the judgment of the city planners and the city zoning officials. Why is his different opinion entitled to so much weight that it requires a jury trial to decide whether as a matter of fact, 295 is so bad that this can't make it worse? I would go back to that even the the metronomeDIA case talks about a sufficient basis for all of them. Now, in that case, based on those facts and those evidence, our position would be is that the, in the stipulated facts, it wasn't, it was like after a trial. And we're in a summary judgment stage. The court said that, okay, this makes sense for us. This is reasonable. We won't, we won't disturb it. But that would then rule out any challenge by any to any order. And there have been subsequent cases, and the order of some time, any any billboard order in and so on. That's what I mean. Excuse me. I should have said that. No, you could. Could you not under metronomeDIA make the case if you had evidence for it that they're banning billboards because they don't like the non-commercial message we've got. Or they're trying to stamp out speech. I mean, they were careful to say in the absence of evidence of an ulterior motive that's inappropriate. We're into judgments about aesthetics and those defy objective determination. I mean, what is the language of metronomeDIA if not saying we're going to give the governing body. The power to make a judgment about what isn't aesthetically pleasing for their township. But is could metronomeDIA mean that any aesthetic judgment could possibly be? Is it only as such and could it reasonably mean after all these years and all the cases that they're having cases with metronomeDIA in place that have, you know, knocked down billboard bands. That say of a location in a heavily urban area where there's entirely industrial and that it would be appropriate to out there advertising. There's no outdoor advertising in the area. Would that mean that a total ban in that area would be improper without the ability to challenge it. If that's what it is, then, you know, I guess we're not going anywhere with this argument. Well, let's look at the track piece for just a second. The Supreme Court in metronomeDIA talks about palpably false factual foundations being insufficient. Is that the right standard? I mean, if you say what Meloro relied on was palpably false, then you can attack them. But is that the standard you have to mean? I would say the standard is still insufficient evidence. And if you look at what the court, what does palpably false language mean then? I mean, if your honest are accepting that it has to be palpably false for traffic, I mean. I'm just asking you what this, I'm reading to you a language from the United States Supreme Court and asking you what we're to make of it. This is the language. They're quoting railway express with approval. They say it is the judgment of the local authorities that it does have a relation that is traffic problems. To the thing that's being challenged. And nothing has been advanced which shows that to be quote palpably false. If I have to meet that standard in this case, and Judge Kuhlberg didn't say I had to, but if I had to meet that standard in this case, I still could look at the studies that Judge Kuhlberg relied on and indicate that indeed, you know, one of the studies, you would attack that sense, the applicability of the study. One of the study wasn't even available to us. The Milwaukee County study wasn't a study that had anything to do with a static billboard. It was textual messages. Actually, that signs a legal in New Jersey because it changed every five minutes. Two of the studies actually we complied with. And that's part of our problem too. The visual study had to do with a cone of vision. You have to have a 20 cone of vision in the forward roadway. We complied with that when we did our specific study of the locations. The 100 car national national naturalistic study said that it shouldn't have your eye, your eyes off the roadway for more than two minutes. That's a study that favors us. That's not palpably false, but they actually favor us. And we use that and we provided expert testimony with Mr. Simoff that actually showed that you could have five to six seconds on these roadways that were out of control. That's a 20 degree angle in the forward roadway. That's why it seems to me the aesthetics. It's a little bit easier for you to get out the safety issue. The aesthetics one. I don't know how you get that. If they have a good faith reason to believe and no one here is arguing that they're acting in bad faith. They have a good faith reason to believe that the stretch of highway is going to be better without billboards than with it. That's almost like saying it seems to me it's harder than the summer than it is in the winter. How can you argue about that? But even if we say that there are appropriate areas, we say that there are the ways. We argue that there are ways of framing and ordinance. Even their aesthetic expert, which was their planner, though we didn't want billboards, not saying that he did, did agree that you could. So there are less restrictive means because there's other prongs of that test. The central Hudson test to meet the concerns that they had with regard to aesthetics. So maybe that becomes the argument. Since the law allows them, the first member doesn't prohibit them from banning all billboards given the necessary threshold is showing. The whole less intrusive means in carbon. That's not really part of this test. But even if the ban is, where is then the alternative means of communication? I mean, it's all that. And billboards do that. Excuse me. It may not be an alternative that would give you billboard space, but there's no constitutional right to put a message on billboards. They can't keep you from putting your message on billboards in the discriminatory way. And when I let you know that they are, they have to have some quantum of evidence looking at Ed and field to believe that what they're doing addresses their concern. They've got 37 studies. Let's assume that 90% of the studies are the lousy studies done by people who don't understand statistics anymore than I do. And therefore, basically they're invalid. You sort of have two or three valid studies left that will give them the quantum of evidence they need to say it's safer without billboards. And as bad as I may look now, it looks better now that would billboards, but you deserve some time. I don't mean to send that you that way, but let's see if he responds to me. I'm going to rebuttal. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Norman. Good afternoon. The one fact that I think is very unique in the first amendment, non-commercial speech context is the, the metronome of cases been referred to as the law of billboards. And the Ed and field requirement of quantum of proof was not required in metronome and I think it's essentially an exception car about from Ed and field. That it was proceeding metronome media that was already enough instances of legislative judgment and judicial decisions that it was no doubt that that that was a substitute for satisfying the third and fourth prongs of such lots. Mr. Norman, who's got the burden of proof to show there are or are not adequate alternative avenues of expression? Well, if you read metronome media, they do engage in analysis of alternative forms of communication and the context of it is not whether or not you can have a billboard. The question is, is do you have reasonable alternatives for advertised by science? And who's got the burden of either showing that there is or there isn't? Why would the facial showing has to be made by the party making the challenge? And of course, Matt Laurel's responses is there's nothing in the township ordinance that prohibits advertising and on-premise sign and that that was the holding in metronome media. They said that the town went far enough. They decided to allow some signs which are on-premise signs but to control the sign proliferation issue, they said you can't have off-premise signs. And that's essentially that's coming right out of metronome media itself. On a second point, if you look at the specific context here, there's nine towns that surround Mount Laurel township. Five of them and our expert reported 43 A of the appendix or 44 to 46 A but we presented our planner did a study and five of the nine surrounding towns, immediately around the periphery of Mount Laurel allow billboards either as a permitted use or a conditional use. So that's one relevant factual piece of evidence that there are alternatives. And his study also showed that Mount Laurel is traversed by St. Highway Route 73 and St. Highway Route 38. There's 18 billboards in South Jersey on St. Highway Route 73 in the vicinity and 14 billboards on Route 38. Now there's two billboards in all of Mount Laurel town with 40,000 people and that's because the town 25 years ago adopted the billboard band. So you know, Mount Laurel has planned engaged in the planning of controlling sign proliferation. They've been doing it for a long time and there is alternatives. The billboard can go to other municipalities. The other evidence at 74 A of the appendix is interstates business itself. They have our planner did a study of all the billboards in Burlington County and found and we obtained this through discovery that interstate has 27 sites of billboards in Burlington County. And there's 36 billboards at those 27 sites. So it's beyond a beyond question that there is opportunities to build to seek billboards. You can lobby other municipalities. That's an option. And with that, I guess someone is it really relevant to say your alternative means of expression in Mount Laurel is to leave Mount Laurel. And it seems sort of like the right thing is that Mount Laurel can ban the speech and if you don't like it, there's all these neighboring townships you can go to to speak in. Well, my own Mount Laurel have an obligation to have alternative avenues of free expression? Well, my analysis of the case law, I believe it was in your opinion in the Philadelphia case, is that the alternatives, the rights of alternatives do not belong to the billboard company. But it's the right of the advertiser. If if AmeriHealth wants to put a sign on a billboard, what rights does AmeriHealth have to advertise in Mount Laurel Township? They can advertise in the newspaper, they can advertise on the internet. There's all kinds of avenues on buses. There's plenty of media in the year 2012 to allow for advertising, some of which didn't exist in the early 1983 when Metro Media was decided. So, you know, I think in a historical context, I think the issue of alternative available forms of communication, I think take on less importance in today's society than existed back in 1983. I think in the record about whether or not someone going to or from Mount Laurel or even living within Mount Laurel would be likely to see one of these other locations and one of the other. To me, New Jersey is just a mess of highways and then they have these disasters waiting to happen called jug handles. When in order to turn left you got to turn right and you can go with it, I get lost. But to me, it would seem that, I don't know if the record reflects it, that in terms of alternative advertising, the record may reflect that the nature of the layout of the highway system, especially attractive in the interstate, such that you're asked likely to see a billboard in one of these other counties as it would be if it were posted in Mount Laurel. But because that's not in the record then that's not something we can consider. It comes with alternative form. Actually, I think if you lived in Mount Laurel and there were billboards on 2.95 and let's say it took 2.95 to and from work, I would think after you drive it 300 something days a week, you'll tune out what's on the billboard. You really, it'll just become background music to your eyes. It's no traffic safety issue, right? Yes. Well, it's, you know, but there are those who traverse 2.95 who are not from Mount Laurel and they may be affected from a traffic state safety standpoint. We presented the studies, the quantum of studies. And the reason Mount Laurel presented those studies was the decision in the Cherry Hill case was the law of the District Court of New Jersey in 2009. And we had Mount Laurel had a comply with that, although it was of the view that we didn't, it did not believe that it had to supply the studies. Was it a mistake for the District Court in this case to require evidence? I mean, the court relied on if I'm not mistaken, a New Jersey case, the Delberts and Stasher of Stas. Yes. And said we want you to come forward with evidence, Laurel. And I think it was a mistake. And the reason is, and I actually brought the bell case with me because there's an excerpt in it, which is right on point, in Bell, the Supreme Court of New Jersey emphasized that, that the particular sign in Stafford, not only prohibited non-commercial speech, it also prohibited political speech, free speech. And that makes that case a little bit different than our case, which had our case out of the substitution clause. So our case is content neutral. The case in Bell, the Stafford was involved. The Supreme Court found that it constrained free speech, political speech. And if you read the New Jersey State case law in Bell and in the subsequent cases on billboards, interpreting Bell, they really impose almost a strict scrutiny type test and a least restrictive means test. Now, if you read those opinions, we think that's wrong. The Mr. Derminio in response to some questions we were firing at him said, Metro Media, and I'm sure he'll correct me if I misunderstood. But I understood him to be saying, you really can't take Metro Media to mean that aesthetic judgments are beyond all question. Because we have later cases that say you need some evidence. Is he right or wrong about that if I've understood him correctly? I think that Metro Media, the language and Metro Media itself on aesthetics essentially says it's elementary that billboards by their nature have an aesthetic impact. So if there is a legislative judgment by the town to say we do not want billboards at our town, I think the courts need to respect that. Well, if that's true, then I have two questions. One, what are you saying in response to Mr. Derminio's point that there are later cases that seem to imply you do have to come forward with evidence? And second, what was it that motivated the district court here to say, give me some evidence? Okay, I could see the argument that a town relying on aesthetics, the band billboards, works in a town like Mount Laurel where they've kept them out by zoning for 25 years and the character of the town is billboard free. But if you change the setting, let's say tomorrow we went, the setting was Camden and someone in the city of Camden decided no more billboards. And if you drive over the bridges, there's plenty of billboards. I mean, just from that sort of background context, if the rationale for Camden was aesthetics and if the character of Camden was such that there already exists many billboards, well then the aesthetic rationale for the prohibition really doesn't fly. And that's true in any zoning case. So they get to the point where they want to rein things in. So they've got this rash billboards all of the place and they found you say enough is enough. How would a local agency go about saying we were saturated, we can't have any more billboards? Well, I think that's supportable too. I guess the question is, if the character of the municipality is such that there's already so many billboards that there's just no, I just think it's a tougher fight because once you allow them, I think that's if you read the New Jersey State Quartz decisions, if you have a zone that allows billboards, they actually are much tougher on the towns and the zones in their particular zones where they don't allow them, they say we already allow them here. Why don't you allow that? I think is our police can be sure from wrong that the character is commercial and industrial, not character is billboards obviously not. The character is commercial and industrial. Therefore, your aesthetic concern is really not advanced by putting up billboards because of the nature of the community that we want to put these billboards up in. Well, that's a subjective opinion. If you took a drive up by $295, you would also see that it is very tree. It doesn't have an urban type of usecape when you're driving on I295 up and through Mount Laurel. It really doesn't present that kind of. I guess we're not going to intrude in the areas of $295 where the trees are, but there's plenty of areas that $295 were in nature of the community and the nature of the surrounding. Well, that sort of analysis is, I think that's some of the analysis in Justice Brennan's concurrence where he said you need to go into a site specific analysis. The only problem with that is the seven judges told him he was wrong. And that's in the taxpayers for Vincent. And several other circuit court decisions that essentially you don't, I mean that view was rejected that you have to do a site specific analysis to say, well, where do they want to permit? Where does billboard company want to erect the billboards? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Your honor. Just on several points. Looking at the end and field versus fain case, if you would look at our response, our briefing response. I mean, our position there was that in a way that was after Metro media and at modified Metro media because it said you had to come up with a reasonable basis with or with evidence to support a complete band. And that's where I think we would hang our hat on. But again, this is some quantum. So, whatever that standard is, is that it's not just a slam dunk. It could not just say, you know, aesthetics. It's not easy. And if you look at, please look at the bill case, because though Bell did site Metro media, Justice Handler also said in that case that, you know, we're talking about some very valuable rights here. It's commercial speech, but it's still a fundamental right. And they are the typical deference that you give to municipalities with regard to zoning matters doesn't hold true. And so he had a separate basis for that based on based apart from Metro media and on an on fundamental. If the Supreme Court of New Jersey and Bell says you need more, but the Supreme Court of the United States says you don't. But, sure, what do we fall for rather than you do? But nevertheless, I would still rely on Ennefield. And I wanted to correct that. Sixth Circuit just within the last month, September 10, 2012, in the case called Bench, billboard company versus City of Toledo said. City of the City of Medicine, it's burdened at the third prong of the central Hudson inquiry. By relying on the Supreme Court's finding in Metro media that the accumulated common sense judgments of local law makers and reviewing courts have established that billboards are real and substantial hazards to traffic safety. That finding may substitute for the independent quantum of evidence that the city would otherwise have to put forth to establish that its regulatory regime addresses a concrete harm. And therefore, we need not decide whether the city would have met its burden to do so. So I take you, you take issue with six circuits. Right. And I guess this court would have to see if it agrees with that in this situation because I mean how valuable are these rights when you get right down to it. But a couple of other quick points, they mentioned this swap out situation. And I do want to say there that this is where you can swap out a non-commercial message sign, let's say a message sign for an on-premise commercial sign. And I think we've got to say there that the emperor has no clothes. I mean, we gave examples of, you know, will the owner of the Mount Laurel Mall, you know, put up take off target, take off Betpath and beyond, take off all these companies that it has leases with to put up when we gave several examples of billboards and anti-abortion billboards and anti-president Obama billboard and anti-approgun billboard. Would they actually put that up? Would they actually do those sorts of things? That is a total sham. And that I think we have challenged in our papers. We've talked about cases where there's a false sense, the exon case, the sprint case in New Jersey World, the Florida case, where we talk about for at least commercial speech, that's a sham. And that should be considered and that should be knocked out. Again, if the Supreme Court is saying that that's an effective means of meeting at least the burden for commercial speech, then the emperor doesn't have any clothes. By the way, we did challenge every single study, even the ones of all these studies, and I took his position, Mr. Little Warning, their experts as well, you know, I know these studies are kind of all over the place. But he said that there were four studies that he thought were valid. And some of them are the same that the court picked out. One, we agreed the natural study, the 100 car crash study, and we complied with 100 car crash study. The other one, Madigan Highland, is a correlation study, and we did discuss that study. The other ones, the Fosmin and the Weiner review of them, we also took a part by our expert witness on a statistical basis, on the bad input. It took every accident, it wasn't a similar roadway to ours. We, we, this is us every study. And it's very interesting, the study that they'll be doing so quickly. Even if we accepted what you're saying about the traffic piece of this, can you win if the aesthetic piece still stands in your way? In other words, is it enough for them to say, it's our aesthetic judgment, we've been doing this for 25 years, that it win regardless of whether the traffic studies are palpably false? Taking the traffic away, there still is aesthetic, there still is this aesthetic problem. I have to recognize that indeed aesthetics is still obviously a valid governmental purpose. Standing on its own. Standing on its own would have to be a valid governmental purpose. And we did provide alternate locations, we provided locations, we provided pictures. We provided evidence, sufficient evidence to say that it's proper here. We provided alternate means. Mr. Parker's judgment. Well, but you're on the, we are talking about a summary judgment motion here. And there are cases, you know, it's in this district where, you know, we're so long as the evidence is, is, is not that challengeable as, you know, under a dog bird or any other claim, it should be considered. I mean, don't we get some benefit of the differences? I mean, one of the differences, for example, that's, in fact, that is the very question. Do you get the benefit of some inference that, because you hired an expert to say, I think this bill would look swell here, that that deserves to be over, overcoming the judgment of the town fathers and mothers that know they don't want a billboard there. It has to has some plausible basis. And that's what we're saying. And that's what we're saying. Saying that metronedia was, was modified by an infield to that, to that extent. And there still has to be some plausible basis, some reasonable basis for a total ban. Mr. Moneo, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Your Honor. Very, very professional. I don't know, but we're sorry. Thank you. Thank you for your arguments and for your presentations in Greece. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That would be a nice to be