Honking horn not constitutionally protected speech.

The whole item is great. The story just gets better and better. From Seattle Times:

As free-speech cases go, Monday's ruling against Helen Immelt may not qualify as a landmark, but it does clear up one question: The prolonged honking of your car's horn in front of your neighbor's house in the wee hours of the morning isn't a constitutionally protected First Amendment right.

But if it's not a free-speech landmark, it may be one in neighbor feuds: The honking was in retaliation for the neighbor's complaint about Immelt's chickens.

And it may also qualify for sheer quixotic determination. For the noise violation in 2006, Immelt went through and lost a three-day jury trial, then appealed the case to the Washington Court of Appeals, representing herself. In his opinion, Justice C. Kenneth Grosse interpreted the words of the Founding Fathers thusly: "Horn honking per se is not free speech."

Here are the details, according to court documents:

Immelt, 52, got a letter from her neighborhood homeowners association in Monroe in 2006, telling her that covenants prohibited the chickens she'd been keeping in her yard. And it literally made her honking mad.

She confronted one neighbor, who called the cops because of Immelt's "accusations, threats and demeanor." Then, Immelt confronted the association's president and the ensuing shouting match drew some other neighbors.

One of them, John Vorderbrueggen, fessed up that he'd had the beef with her chickens.

So, at 5:50 the next morning, Immelt parked in front of Vorderbrueggen's house and leaned on her car's horn for about 10 minutes.