PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 23-1242

ADAMS OUTDOOR ADVERTISING LIMITED PARTNERSHIP

Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

BEAUFORT COUNTY; ERIC GREENWAY, Beaufort County Administrator; HILLARY AUSTIN, Zoning and Development Administrator for Beaufort County

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina at Beaufort. Bruce H. Hendricks, District Judge. (9:21−cv−01517−BHH)

Argued: May 8, 2024 Decided: June 21, 2024

Before DIAZ, Chief Judge, WILKINSON, Circuit Judge, and MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge.

Remanded with directions by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge Diaz and Senior Judge Motz joined.

ARGUED: Jeffrey Scott Tibbals, BYBEE & TIBBALS, LLC, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, for Appellant. Scott Dean Bergthold, LAW OFFICE OF SCOTT D. BERGTHOLD, PLLC, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Evan P. Williams, BYBEE & TIBBALS, LLC, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, for Appellant. O. Edworth Liipfert III, Beaufort, South Carolina, for Appellees. USCA4 Appeal: 23-1242 Doc: 61 Filed: 06/21/2024 Pg: 2 of 20

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

Adams Outdoor Advertising Limited Partnership constructs, manages, designs, and

repairs billboards across the Midwest, Northeast, and Southeastern United States. But not

all jurisdictions in those regions appreciate billboards like Adams’s. Beaufort County has

sought to phase out billboards within its borders by prohibiting the construction of new

billboards and restricting structural repairs of old ones.

Adams and Beaufort County clashed over the county’s billboard policy twice in the

spring of 2021. First, Adams was issued a criminal citation for performing structural repairs

on two old billboards without seeking authorization. Second, Adams filed eleven

applications requesting permits to construct new commercial billboards with digital

displays, each of which was denied.

Based on these two events, Adams sought to challenge Beaufort County’s local

ordinance regulating billboards, along with several other local sign regulations. The district

court dismissed all of Adams’s claims with prejudice. The claims related to the criminal

citation were dismissed under the Younger abstention doctrine, and those related to the

permit denials were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. We agree with each of the district

court’s dismissal determinations. But the claims dismissed for lack of jurisdiction ought to

have been dismissed without prejudice, and so we remand those claims with the instruction

that their dismissal be amended to dismissal without prejudice.

I.

We begin with the claims related to the criminal citation—the first, third, fifth and

eighth causes of action in the complaint. Each of these claims challenges the portion of the

2 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1242 Doc: 61 Filed: 06/21/2024 Pg: 3 of 20

Beaufort County Community Development Code that Adams was accused of violating

when it repaired two billboards in April 2021: § 5.6.50(E) (the “Repair Provision”). 1 The

district court dismissed the Repair Provision claims after Adams consented to abstention

under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971).

On appeal, Adams does not argue that

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