{"id":38813,"date":"2016-09-01T09:37:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T13:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/?p=38813"},"modified":"2016-09-01T09:37:43","modified_gmt":"2016-09-01T13:37:43","slug":"inflatable-rat-day-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/inflatable-rat-day-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Inflatable Rat Has Its Day In Court","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has found that Unions have the First Amendment right to display an inflatable rat as part of an area standards campaign. \u00a0Furthermore, localities that attempt to prohibit the use of inflatable rats may be infringing on that First Amendment right.<br \/>\nThe decision was made in <em>Laborers Local Union No. 330 v. Town of Grand Chute. \u00a0The case<\/em>\u00a0overturned a lower court decision which originally dismissed the Union\u2019s First Amendment claims. \u00a0The Town of Grand Chute in Illinois had ordered the LIUNA local to remove an inflatable rat that was being used as part of an area standards campaign. Though the rat was located on a public right-of-way next to the construction project the town still acted to remove the inflatable after the owner of the construction site called to complain.<br \/>\nThe Union took the matter to Federal Court claiming a violation of the First Amendment right to engage in free speech. The Union noted that Grand Chute had never enforced its own sign ordinance against other signs around town or even against the rat prior to the property owners complaint. A lower court had originally\u00a0dismissed the Union&#8217;s complaint, arguing that the sign ordinance existed to protect\u00a0local aesthetics. \u00a0The Federal Court found that the Union&#8217;s free speech was in fact violated due to inconsistent enforcement of the town ordiance and ordered the case be\u00a0returned back to the District Court with a list of detailed instruction on how the case is to be reviewed.<br \/>\nIn a summation of its opinion, the Federal court ruled that incomplete enforcement of the town&#8217;s own ordinance \u201cis not an adequate answer to a contention that unit of government has allowed some speech and stifled other speech, choosing which ideas can be conveyed.\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has found that Unions have the First Amendment right to display an inflatable rat as part of an area standards campaign. \u00a0Furthermore, localities that attempt to prohibit the use of inflatable rats may be infringing on that First Amendment right. The decision was made in Laborers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":9,"featured_media":38814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"member_types":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Inflatable Rat Has Its Day In Court - SMART Union<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/inflatable-rat-day-court\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Inflatable Rat Has Its Day In Court - SMART Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has found that Unions have the First Amendment right to display an inflatable rat as part of an area standards campaign. \u00a0Furthermore, localities that attempt to prohibit the use of inflatable rats may be infringing on that First Amendment right. The decision was made in Laborers [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/inflatable-rat-day-court\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SMART Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-01T13:37:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/rat.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"194\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"194\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"paul\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"paul\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/inflatable-rat-day-court\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/inflatable-rat-day-court\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"paul\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/#\/schema\/person\/3bf284ac953ca998cc3f03167a72c88f\"},\"headline\":\"Inflatable Rat Has Its Day In Court\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-09-01T13:37:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-09-01T13:37:43+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/inflatable-rat-day-court\/\"},\"wordCount\":308,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/inflatable-rat-day-court\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/rat.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Front Page\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/inflatable-rat-day-court\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/inflatable-rat-day-court\/\",\"name\":\"Inflatable Rat Has Its Day In Court - 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