Utah Court of Appeals
2025 UT App 122 (click for full text of opinion)
On appeal after remand, the Utah Court of Appeals concluded that SLC’s previous written instructions to a billboard relocation applicant estopped it from thereafter refusing to compensate the applicant upon denial of the requested relocation.
R.O.A. General is the successor to Outfront Media LLC, formerly known as CBS Outdoor. The background facts of this case produced the Utah Supreme Court opinion in Outfront Media, LLC v. Salt Lake City Corp., 2017 UT 74, as well as the Utah Court of Appeals opinion in R.O.A. Gen. v. Salt Lake City (R.O.A. I), 2022 UT App 141 following a remand from Outfront Media.
At issue is the interplay between city ordinances which authorize limited billboard relocation under specific circumstances, and certain provisions of state law which also preemptively allow relocation in other circumstances not otherwise allowed by the city’s regulatory scheme. In essence, city regulations allowed a billboard owner who demolished a billboard to receive “credit” toward a potential new billboard in a new location subject to city standards. State law, on the other hand, preemptively allowed a billboard owner to relocate or otherwise modify an existing billboard that met certain eligibility requirements and standards. Alternatively, state law also allowed the owner of an existing billboard under specific circumstances to ask a city to waive its ordinances to allow relocation, but if declined by the city, would be considered a condemnation requiring compensation.
Here, facing the end of a lease term, CBS applied to the City for permission to move its billboard to another lot and increase its height, citing one of the provisions in state code. After submitting the application, however, due to the end of the lease, CBS demolished the billboard while awaiting the city’s decision. The City denied the request as submitted, concluding that the specific changes CBS requested (both to move and to increase the height) were not eligible under state law standards. Moreover, whereas the billboard had since been demolished, the City concluded its letter explaining that the applicant could either (1) seek credit for the now-demolished sign under city ordinances, or (2) modify its request to relocate under the other provision of state law that allowed the city to consider waiving its ordinances to allow for relocation, noting that the city reserved its right under that statute to condemn the sign if it chose to decline relocation.
Rather than take the credits or modify the request, the billboard owner then litigated the denial, during which time a competing relocation request came to the City to move another billboard essentially to the same spot that had been sought by CBS, which the City approved. After losing in litigation, CBS eventually accepted the City’s offer to modify its application and renewed its request to relocate under the specific provision of state law. However, the City responded with another denial, claiming that the sign had already been demolished before the modified request and therefore did not qualify as an “existing” sign for relocation, or, alternatively, that because the City had approved the other relocation in the meantime, CBS’s modified request did not comply with certain spacing requirements from other existing signs under state statute. The parties again returned to litigation and subsequent appeals.
Here, the Utah Court of Appeals concluded that even if under the plain terms of the applicable statute, CBS’s modified relocation request would not have qualified as an “existing” sign for purposes of relocation, the doctrine of equitable estoppel prevented the City from refusing to compensate the billboard owner upon denial of his request. Equitable estoppel first requires a statement, admission, act, or failure to act by one party inconsistent with a claim later asserted. The Court noted that the few cases in which Utah courts have permitted estoppel against the government have involved very specific written representations, which the Court found to be present in this case. The Court concluded that the City’s initial denial letter contained a very specific representation that the City would accept a modified request, and that this invitation not only caused CBS to rely on the City’s representation by forgoing other alternatives under City relocation ordinances, but that this invitation was inconsistent with the City’s current claim that it could lawfully deny compensation based on CBS having demolished the billboard prior to submitting the modified request. The Court accordingly upheld judgment against the City requiring it to compensate CBS for the billboard.
