Kaysville attorneys had argued that commercial speech rights could be restricted to protect residents' privacy, and to protect them from potentially misleading, or fraudulent sales pitches.

However, U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell ruled late Thursday that, "There is no dispute that the speech at issue in this case is commercial speech [and that] the evidence presented by the defendants regarding the alleged misleading content and methods of Kirby vacuum cleaner sales teams is simply not relevant."

Campbell's ruling gave Kirby vacuum cleaner distributors their first victory in lawsuits against 23 Utah cities over bans, fines, fees and arrests of their sales representatives in the past three years.

Attorney Matt Hilton, who represents several of the plaintiffs, said the ruling may help speed resolution of the remaining cases.

"We have been in touch with eight cities about drafting a model ordinance regulating door-to-door solicitation that would not infringe on commercial speech rights," he said. "Another five or six cases are tentatively going to mediation."

The ruling only evaluated legal issues in the case; a decision on monetary awards will be made separately. Hilton estimated Kaysville could end up paying "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in damages.

He would not identify the cities now in talks, noting negotiations are both sensitive and confidential. However, Kaysville is not among them, at least not yet.

"We haven't had the opportunity to read it at this point," City Attorney Felshaw King said of Campbell's late Thursday ruling. "We'll review it, get together [with Kaysville officials] and determine where to go from here; that may include an appeal."

While Salt Lake City is not among the public entities also being sued over the issue, Salt Lake County was added to the list in January.

Hilton stressed that in all the suits challenging door-to-door restrictions, his clients - Pacific Frontier Inc., J&L Distributing and more than a dozen individuals - do not seek a blanket mandate to ring doorbells and pitch their products.

"We have no objection to a city regulating fraudulent or misleading speech, or saying people can put up 'no soliciting' signs and expect them to be honored," Hilton said.

However, many Utah cities have resorted to costly licensing schemes or outright bans to keep commercial door-to-door sales people at bay. Plaintiffs estimated that traveling from town to town along the Wasatch Front could cost them tens of thousands of dollars in licensing and other fees under current municipal laws.

Kaysville, the suit alleged, enacted at least three anti-commercial solicitation statutes this decade. They ranged from a ban on door-to-door solicitors enacted in 2001 to imposition of various licensing requirements and unspecified fees.

Kaysville, as others being sued, offers charitable fund-raising exemptions to its statutes.