5th Circuit – Interior Designers Can Call Themselves Interior Designers

The 5th Circuit recently held that the First Amendment protects the right of interior designers to use the job title “interior designer.” The suit arose out of the State of Texas. Although Texas did not require interior designers obtain a license prior to practicing their trade, it did prohibit unlicensed practitioners from describing themselves as “interior designers.”

The 5th Circuit held that the limited commercial speech doctrine was applicable to the case and thus granted a preliminary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law. The reasoning of the “likelihood of success on the merits” prong of the preliminary injunction analysis suggests that the end result will uphold this ruling.

The court wrote: “The descriptive term “interior designer and interior design are not…inherently misleading. They merely describe a person’s trade or business. The terms can be employed deceptively, for example if a person does not actually practice interior design, but the speech is neither actually nor inherently misleading.”

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