 The church filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona in March 2008 , where they claimed the town " abridged their freedom of speech in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments " . The district court first denied the church 's request for a preliminary injunction , and the church then appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit . The Ninth Circuit , analyzing the likelihood of success on the merits requirement for a preliminary injunction , affirmed the decision of the district court , holding that the town 's restrictions for temporary directional signs " did not regulate speech on the basis of content " Although the Ninth Circuit conceded that enforcement officers would need to read a sign to determine which portions of the sign ordinance applied to the sign , the Ninth Circuit concluded that this " cursory examination " was not equivalent to " synthesizing the expressive content of the sign " . The Ninth Circuit then remanded the case back to the district court to determine " in the first instance whether the Sign Code ’ s distinctions among temporary directional signs , political signs , and ideological signs nevertheless constituted a content @-@ based regulation of speech . " 
