South Dakota to pay the legal bills for a man who won a First Amendment case in federal court that centered on personalized license plates

Earlier this month, the state of South Dakota agreed to a settlement with Lynn Hart, who had sued the state over its personalized license plate policy with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota.

The settlement saw the state strike language allowing it to act as a judge of good taste and decency in decisions on whether to approve personalized plates. Instead, the state Division of Motor Vehicles will rely on the Merriam-Webster dictionary to determine if a plate application is too vulgar to affix to a vehicle in South Dakota.

The state will pay just over $78,000 in total to cover the legal fees for Hart and the ACLU of South Dakota, which called the settlement a victory for free speech when it was announced earlier this month