The recall of a Hawaii man’s personalized license plate FCKBLM was constitutionally permissible, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.
Edward Odquina argued that his rights of free expression were violated when Honolulu officials ordered him to return the plate they said had been issued in error. The appellate panel, however, said the restriction focused on the content — that is, vulgar language — rather than the viewpoint of the message, and as such was constitutionally valid.
The ruling issued Wednesday in San Francisco upheld a federal judge’s denial of Odquina’s request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order against the recall of his plate.
Odquina, 49, had requested the license plate in January 2021. When a Honolulu city services employee contacted him to ask its meaning, Odquina claimed it was an acronym for his business’s name. The employee approved the plate, though he later acknowledged that he shouldn’t have, as he realized the first three letters were an “implied expletive” and that “swear words have always been prohibited,” last year’s District Court ruling said.
When Odquina came to pick up the plate at Honolulu City Hall, another employee told her supervisor that the plate violated the policy against vulgarity. Reportedly fearing that Odquina would become “aggressive with staff,” a higher-up instructed them to issue the plate and said a recall notice would be sent to the man.
Odquina refused to surrender the plate. On August 13, 2021 — two days after receiving a second written notice of the recall — he registered the business name Film Consulting KravMAGA Bloomberg. The following month, he created a non-profit corporation called Fight Communism and Knucklehead Bitch Liberal Marxists.
Odquina was also listed in court documents as the operator of the website fckblm.org. The site is currently blank, but in October 2022 it reportedly displayed a long statement that railed against “Criminals being publicized as social justice Heroes” and called for “ELIMINATING the … ANTI-AMERICAN delusional Leftist LIBTARD SCOURGE across nation.”
Because Odquina defied the recall order, he was unable to renew his vehicle registration, and in September 2022 he sued the city and the state’s acting attorney general.
