McCoy v. Town of Pittsfield, NH, 59 F.4th 497

Background

McCoy obtained a Town of Pittsfield storage-container permit for a 52-foot trailer (effective Sept. 1, 2015) and represented the trailer was used principally for storage.
In Jan. 2016 McCoy’s son painted “TRUMP! USA” and “2016” on the trailer side visible from Route 107; the Board granted two one-year permit extensions (Nov. 2016 and June 13, 2017) while the political message was visible.
By July 2017 the trailer had been repainted with a nonpolitical hot-air-balloon design; in June 2018 the Board denied McCoy’s request for a third extension, citing complaints and prior promises to remove the trailer.
McCoy sold and removed the trailer in July 2018 and sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming (as-applied) vagueness, First Amendment content/viewpoint discrimination, and equal protection selective enforcement/class-of-one violations.
The district court granted summary judgment to the Town (finding insufficient evidence of content/viewpoint discrimination, no as-applied vagueness, and no proof of similarly situated comparators or discriminatory intent); the First Circuit affirmed.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
District court sua sponte consideration under Rule 56(f)	McCoy: court erred by deciding content/viewpoint claim at summary judgment without adequate notice or time to respond.	Town: summary judgment was filed after discovery; court gave notice at hearing and no continuance was requested.	Court: adequate notice was given at the hearing and McCoy had opportunity to present evidence; consideration was proper.
First Amendment — content/viewpoint discrimination (as-applied)	McCoy: Ordinance was applied to punish political speech (pro-Trump) and thus is content- and viewpoint-discriminatory.	Town: Ordinance is facially content-neutral and applied for storage/permit reasons; no evidence Ordinance enforcement was motivated by message.	Court: No evidence that enforcement relied on or was adopted to suppress content or viewpoint; summary judgment for Town affirmed.
Equal Protection — class-of-one and selective enforcement	McCoy: He was singled out; other nonexpressive trailers were permitted to remain.	Town: McCoy failed to identify truly similarly situated comparators and produced no evidence of discriminatory intent.	Court: McCoy failed to show the required "extremely high degree of similarity" among comparators and no evidence of impermissible intent; claim fails.
As-applied vagueness	McCoy: Ordinance and Town’s extension practice are vague and allowed arbitrary enforcement; he contends trailer functioned principally as a sign at times.	Town: McCoy applied for permits, repeatedly represented trailer was for storage, and had notice permits were time-limited; Ordinance sets objective criteria for application.	Court: As-applied vagueness fails—McCoy had fair notice (he sought and received permits/extensions), and the Ordinance is not so standardless as to permit arbitrary enforcement.

Key Cases Cited

Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155 (content-based speech restrictions and strict scrutiny)
City of Austin v. Reagan Nat'l Advert. of Austin, LLC, 142 S. Ct. 1464 (content-based regulation analysis)
Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819 (viewpoint discrimination doctrine)
McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464 (strict scrutiny for content-based burdens on speech)
Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781 (intermediate scrutiny for time, place, manner restrictions)
McGuire v. Reilly (McGuire II), 386 F.3d 45 (selective enforcement and content-discriminatory enforcement framework)
Signs for Jesus v. Town of Pembroke, 977 F.3d 93 (First Circuit on content-neutral restrictions and enforcement evidence)
Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562 (class-of-one equal protection theory)
Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Ests., Inc., 455 U.S. 489 (vagueness standards for civil statutes)
Williams v. United States, 553 U.S. 285 (vagueness doctrine: prohibitions on standardless statutes)