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Amalgamated Food Employees Union Local 590 v. Logan Valley Plaza, Inc.

Supreme Court of the United States · 1968 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawPropertyFirst AmendmentPicketingShopping CentersTrespassFirst Amendmentpeaceful picketing

Facts

Logan Valley Plaza owned a shopping center containing, at the time, Weis Markets and Sears, with parking lots, roadways, and sidewalks open to the public. After Weis opened with a nonunion staff, union members peacefully picketed near the Weis store within the parcel pickup area and adjacent parking lot, carrying signs that Weis was nonunion and paid no union wages or benefits. Respondents sought and obtained an injunction that effectively forced all picketing onto berms along nearby public roads outside the shopping center. The picketing was peaceful, sporadic congestion was infrequent, and the state supreme court upheld the injunction solely as an application of trespass law.

Issue

May a State apply its trespass law to enjoin peaceful picketing on privately owned shopping-center property that is open to the public and functions as the community's business district, when the picketing is directed at a business located there? More specifically, does the First Amendment bar a shopping center from wholly excluding such expression solely because the property is privately owned?

Rule

Peaceful picketing in a location generally open to the public is protected by the First Amendment absent other factors involving the purpose or manner of the picketing. When privately owned property serves as the functional equivalent of a municipal business district and is freely accessible to the public, the State may not use trespass law to wholly exclude First Amendment activity conducted in a manner and for a purpose generally consonant with the property's use; however, reasonable time, place, and manner regulations to prevent interference remain permissible.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Rivergate Commons in Columbus, Ohio is a privately owned suburban shopping center with multiple stores, internal roads, sidewalks between storefronts, and a large public parking lot. The public enters freely from adjoining roads. A union peacefully pickets on a sidewalk outside Bright Basket Grocery, a tenant in the center, carrying signs that the grocery pays nonunion wages; the center gets a state-court injunction under trespass law forcing the pickets to stand on a roadside shoulder 450 feet away.

Under the majority's rule, is the injunction most likely constitutional?

Explanation. The majority held that where privately owned property is freely open to the public and is the functional equivalent of a municipal business district, the State may not use trespass law to wholly exclude peaceful First Amendment activity conducted in a manner and for a purpose generally consonant with the property's use. Here the picketing is peaceful, directly related to a tenant store's operations, and the order forces the speakers to a distant roadside location that substantially hinders communication. The majority rejected naked title alone as sufficient justification for total exclusion.