Source: https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/robins-v-pruneyard-shopping-center-30510
Timestamp: 2020-06-05 03:30:43
Document Index: 678282732

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 21000', '§ 30000', '§ 13000', '§ 66410', '§ 11000', '§ 3', '§ 8', '§ 3']

Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center - 23 Cal.3d 899 - Fri, 03/30/1979 | California Supreme Court Resources
Home > Opinions > Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center
Citation 23 Cal.3d 899
Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center , 23 Cal.3d 899
Ruffo, Ferrari & McNeil, Thomas P. O'Donnell and Bradford C. O'Brien for Defendants and Respondents. [23 Cal.3d 902]
Soon after they had begun their soliciting they were approached by a security guard who informed them that their conduct violated Pruneyard regulations. They spoke to the guard's superior, who informed them they would have to leave because they did not have permission to solicit. The officers suggested that appellants continue their activities on the public sidewalk at the center's perimeter. fn. 1 [23 Cal.3d 903]
Respondents contend that Diamond II was correctly decided and controls this case. They argue that Lloyd did more than define parameters of First Amendment free speech, that it recognized identifiable property rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. They acknowledge that states are free to establish greater rights under their constitutions [23 Cal.3d 904] than those guaranteed by the federal Constitution. They contend however that, since a ruling that petitioners' activity here was protected by the California Constitution would diminish respondents' property rights under Lloyd, we may not so rule.
Appellants correctly assert that Lloyd is primarily a First Amendment case. The references to Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were made specifically in connection with the court's discussion of state action requirements. The court was focusing on Marsh v. Alabama (1946) 326 U.S. 501 [90 L.Ed. 265, 66 S.Ct. 276], which held that a property owner's actions in some circumstances are equivalent to state action because of public functions performed by the property. The court in Lloyd examined the functions performed by Lloyd's center but did not purport to define the nature or scope of Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of shopping center owners generally. [23 Cal.3d 905]
Subsequent decisions support that reading of Lloyd. In Hudgens v. NLRB (1976) 424 U.S. 507 [47 L.Ed.2d 196, 96 S.Ct. 1029] the court again considered First Amendment rights in relation to private property. Though it concluded that the First Amendment did not protect picketing in a shopping center, it acknowledged that "statutory or common law may in some situations extend protection or provide redress against a private corporation or person who seeks to abridge the free expression of others ...." (Id., p. 513 [47 L.Ed.2d p. 203].) The court's conclusion that the National Labor Relations Act controlled the issues there presented indicates that Lloyd by no means created any property right immune from regulation.
Eastex, Inc., v. NLRB (1978) 437 U.S. 556 [57 L.Ed.2d 428, 98 S.Ct. 2505] is comparable. The employees sought to distribute a four-part union newsletter. Two parts involved organizational requests; the other parts were irrelevant to the relations between employer and union. fn. 3 A dissent by Justice Rehnquist, joined by Chief Justice Burger, states that property rights "explicitly protected from federal interference by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution" were involved in the controversy. Rejecting that view, the majority had little difficulty recognizing that, as noted in Hudgens, supra, 424 U.S. at page 513 [47 L.Ed.2d at page 203], the National Labor Relations Act could provide statutory protection for the activity involved. The court observed that prior cases established that the act assures a right to distribute organizational literature on an employer's premises because employees already are rightfully there, to perform the duties of their employment. (See Republic Aviations Corp. v. NLRB (1945) 324 U.S. 793 [89 L.Ed. 1372, 65 S.Ct. 982, 157 A.L.R. 1081].) The court concluded, "Even if the mere distribution by employees of material ... can be said to intrude on petitioner's property rights in any meaningful sense, the degree of intrusion does not vary with the content of the material." (Eastex, supra, U.S. 556.)
The same may be said here. Members of the public are rightfully on Pruneyard's premises because the premises are open to the public during shopping hours. Lloyd when viewed in conjunction with Hudgens and Eastex does not preclude law-making in California which requires that shopping center owners permit expressive activity on their property. To hold otherwise would flout the whole development of law regarding [23 Cal.3d 906] states' power to regulate uses of property and would place a state's interest in strengthening First Amendment rights in an inferior rather than a preferred position. [2] "[A]ll private property is held subject to the power of the government to regulate its use for the public welfare." (Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. v. Superior Court (1976) 16 Cal.3d 392, 403 [128 Cal.Rptr. 183, 546 P.2d 687]; app. dism. for want of substantial federal question, 429 U.S. 802 [50 L.Ed.2d 63, 97 S.Ct. 33].)
Property rights must yield to the public interest served by zoning laws (Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. (1926) 272 U.S. 365 [71 L.Ed. 303, 47 S.Ct. 114, 54 A.L.R. 1016]), to environmental needs (Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq.), and to many other public concerns. (See, e.g., the California Coastal Act (id., § 30000 et seq.), the California Water Quality Control Act (Wat. Code, § 13000 et seq.) the Subdivision Map Act (Gov. Code, § 66410 et seq.), and the Subdivision Lands Act (Bus & Prof. Code, § 11000 et seq. See also Powell, The Relationship Between Property Rights and Civil Rights (1963) 15 Hastings L.J. 135, 148-149.)
[3] The Agricultural Labor Relations Board opinion further observes that the power to regulate property is not static; rather it is capable of expansion to meet new conditions of modern life. Property rights must be "'redefined in response to a swelling demand that ownership be [23 Cal.3d 907] responsible and responsive to the needs of the social whole. Property rights cannot be used as a shibboleth to cloak conduct which adversely affects the health, the safety, the morals, or the welfare of others.'" (16 Cal.3d at p. 404, quoting Powell, The Relationship Between Property Rights and Civil Rights, supra, 15 Hastings L.J. at pp. 149-150.)
In assessing the significance of the growing importance of the shopping center we stress also that to prohibit expressive activity in the centers would impinge on constitutional rights beyond speech rights. Courts have long protected the right to petition as an essential attribute of governing. (United States v. Cruikshank (1876) 92 U.S. 542, 552 [23 L.Ed. 588, 591].) The California Constitution declares that "people have the right to ... petition government for redress of grievances ...." (Art. I, § 3.) [4] That right in California is, moreover, vital to a basic process in the state's constitutional scheme -- direct initiation of change by the [23 Cal.3d 908] citizenry through initiative, referendum, and recall. (Cal. Const., art. II, §§ 8, 9, and 13.) fn. 4
Past decisions on speech and private property testify to the strength of "liberty of speech" in this state. Diamond I held that distributing leaflets and soliciting initiative signatures at a shopping center are constitutionally protected. Though the court relied partly on federal law, California precedents also were cited. (E.g., Schwartz-Torrance Investment Corp. v. Bakery & Confectionery Workers' Union (1964) 61 Cal.2d 766 [40 Cal.Rptr. 233, 394 P.2d 921]; In re Lane (1969) 71 Cal.2d 872 [79 Cal.Rptr. 729, 457 P.2d 561]; In re Hoffman (1967) 67 Cal.2d 845 [64 Cal.Rptr. 97, 434 P.2d 353].) The fact that those opinions cited federal law that subsequently took a divergent course does not diminish their usefulness as precedent. (People v. Pettingill (1978) 21 Cal.3d 231, 247 [23 Cal.3d 909] [145 Cal.Rptr. 861, 578 P.2d 108]; and see Cal. Const. Revision Com., Recommendations (1971) art. I, § 3, com., p. 17 ["Federal ... legal precedents are subject to change and uncertain in scope"].) The duty of this court is to help determine what "liberty of speech" means in California. Federal principles are relevant but not conclusive so long as federal rights are protected.
The issue arose too in In re Hoffman (1967) 67 Cal.2d 845 [64 Cal.Rptr. 97, 434 P.2d 353], where Vietnam War protesters had attempted to distribute leaflets in the Los Angeles Union Station, owned by three private companies. It housed a restaurant, snack bar, cocktail lounge, and magazine stand in addition to facilities directly related to transporting passengers. The public was free to use the whole station. Chief Justice Traynor's opinion made it clear that property owners as well as government may regulate speech as to time, place, and manner. (Id., at pp. 852-853.) Nonetheless, "a railway station is like a public street or park." (Id., at p. 851.) Further, "the test is not whether petitioners' use of the station was a railway use but whether it interfered with that use." (Id.) The opinion thus affirms that the public interest in peaceful speech outweighs the desire of property owners for control over their property. (See too In re Cox (1970) 3 Cal.3d 205, 217-218 [90 Cal.Rptr. 24, 474 P.2d 992]: "The shopping center may no more exclude individuals who wear long hair ... who are black, who are members of the John Birch Society, or who belong to the American Civil Liberties Union, merely because of these characteristics or associations, than may the City of San Rafael.") [23 Cal.3d 910]
By no means do we imply that those who wish to disseminate ideas have free rein. We noted above Chief Justice Traynor's endorsement of time, place, and manner rules. (In re Hoffman, supra, 67 Cal.2d at pp. 852-853.) Further, as Justice Mosk stated in Diamond II, "It bears repeated emphasis that we do not have under consideration the property or privacy rights of an individual homeowner or the proprietor of a modest retail establishment. As a result of advertising and the lure of a congenial environment, 25,000 persons are induced to congregate daily to take advantage of the numerous amenities offered by the [shopping [23 Cal.3d 911] center there]. A handful of additional orderly persons soliciting signatures and distributing handbills in connection therewith, under reasonable regulations adopted by defendant to assure that these activities do not interfere with normal business operations (see Diamond [I] at p. 665) would not markedly dilute defendant's property rights." (11 Cal.3d at p. 345 (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).)
In brief, following a full evidentiary hearing, the trial court specifically found as follows: The Pruneyard Shopping Center is located entirely on private property, and its owner had adopted a nondiscriminatory policy of prohibiting all handbilling and circulation of petitions by anyone and regardless of content. Plaintiffs entered on Pruneyard property and sought to obtain signatures to petitions entirely unrelated to any activities occurring at the center. (The petitions were to the President of the United States and the Congress opposing a United Nations resolution which condemned Zionism and attacking Syria's emigration policy.) Pruneyard is located in Santa Clara County which contains numerous forums for distributing handbills or gathering signatures, including "many shopping centers, public shopping and business areas, public buildings, parks, stadia, universities, colleges, schools, post offices and similar public areas where large numbers of people congregate." The court further found that numerous alternative public sites were available to plaintiffs for their [23 Cal.3d 912] purposes. Nonetheless, plaintiffs made no attempt whatever to obtain signatures on their petition in these alternative public areas, whether situated nearby or otherwise.
With due deference, I suggest that the able trial court's judgment was not only entirely proper, but was compelled by the holdings in Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, supra, 407 U.S. 551, and Diamond v. Bland (1974) 11 Cal.3d 331 [113 Cal.Rptr. 468, 521 P.2d 460] (cert. den. 419 U.S. 885 [42 L.Ed.2d 125, 95 S.Ct. 152]). The present majority, unable to escape the controlling force of Lloyd, acknowledges that "Lloyd held that a shopping center owner could prohibit distribution of leaflets when they communicated no information relating to the center's business and when there was an adequate, alternate means of communication." (Ante, p. 904.) However, the majority attempts to circumvent Lloyd by relying upon the "liberty of speech clauses" of the California Constitution. I believe that such an analysis is clearly incorrect, because the owners of defendant Pruneyard Shopping Center possess federally protected property rights which do not depend upon the varying and shifting interpretations of state constitutional law for their safeguard and survival. Indeed, this was the precise effect of our own express holding in Diamond v. Bland, supra, wherein we stated with great clarity that "... we must reject plaintiff's proposal ... that we consider using the 'free speech' provisions of our state Constitution to reach a contrary result in this case. Even were we to hold that the state Constitution in some manner affords broader protection than the First Amendment to the United States Constitution ..., nevertheless supremacy principles would prevent us from employing state constitutional provisions to defeat defendant's federal constitutional rights." (11 Cal.3d at p. 335, fn. 4, italics added.) This constitutional principle is as sound today as it was less than five years ago when we last expressed it.
The application of our Diamond holding to the case before us is clear and inescapable. Nonetheless, the present majority now disavows Diamond [23 Cal.3d 913] and attempts to distinguish Lloyd as "primarily a First Amendment case" rather than a private property case. (Ante, p. 904.) Apparently, the majority now believes that Lloyd merely held that the leaflet distributors in that case lacked any First Amendment rights to assert against the shopping center owners, a deficiency the majority would now cure by creating more substantial "free speech" rights under the California Constitution than are recognized under the First Amendment.
Recognizing the "special solicitude" owed to the First Amendment guarantees, the high court in Lloyd nonetheless noted that "this Court has never held that a trespasser or an uninvited guest may exercise general rights of free speech on property privately owned and used nondiscriminatorily for private purposes only." (P. 568 [33 L.Ed.2d p. 142].) Moreover, the court determined that although a shopping center is open to the public, "property [does not] lose its private character merely because the public is generally invited to use it for designated purposes." (P. 569 [33 L.Ed.2d, p. 143].) It is self-evident that the federally protected property [23 Cal.3d 914] rights are the same whether the shopping center is in Oregon, as in Lloyd, or in California, as in the present case.
The familiar words of article VI, clause 2, of the United States Constitution read as follows: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." (Italics added.) The controlling import of the supremacy clause on the issue before us is readily apparent. The United States Supreme Court, interpreting the United States Constitution, has declared that an owner of a private shopping center "when adequate, alternative avenues of communication exist," has a property right protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments which is superior to the First Amendment right of those who come upon the shopping center premises for purposes unrelated to the center. In such cases, no state court, interpreting a state Constitution, including this court interpreting the California Constitution, can contravene such a federal constitutionally [23 Cal.3d 915] protected right. Thus, in this case, the majority is prevented from relying on the California Constitution to impair or interfere with those property rights. We are bound by the United States Supreme Court interpretations of the United States Constitution. More specifically, in a confrontation between federal and state constitutional interests, federally protected property rights recognized by the United States Supreme Court will prevail against state protected free speech interests where alternative means of free expression are available.
Nor does the recent case of Eastex, Inc. v. NLRB (1978) 437 U.S. 556 [57 L.Ed.2d 428, 98 S.Ct. 2505], assist the majority. There, the Supreme Court upheld the rights of employees to distribute certain organizational material at their work site. The distinction between the rights of employees and nonemployees in this situation is well recognized, as was expressly noted by the Eastex court itself: "The Court recently has emphasized the distinction between the two cases: 'A wholly different balance was struck when the organizational activity was carried on by employees already rightfully on the employer's property, since the employer's management interests rather than his property interests were [23 Cal.3d 916] there involved.' [Citing Hudgens, 424 U.S. 507, and Central Hardware, 407 U.S. 539, both supra.]." (Pp. 571-572 [57 L.Ed.2d p. 442], italics added.)
The majority correctly observes that "property rights must yield to the public interest served by zoning laws ..., to environmental needs ..., and to many other public concerns." (Ante, p. 906.) Yet the "zoning for free speech uses" which the majority attempts to accomplish today goes far beyond any traditional police power regulation. Such unprecedented fiat has no support in constitutional, statutory or decisional law. The character of a free speech claim cannot be transmuted into something else by changing the label and invoking the police power. As noted above, the Lloyd case acknowledged that considerations of public health and safety may justify an "appropriate government response," but that "on the facts presented in this case, the answer is clear." (407 U.S. at p. 570 [33 L.Ed.2d at p. 143], italics added; see also, Euclid v. Ambler Co. (1926) 272 U.S. 365, 395 [71 L.Ed. 303, 314, 47 S.Ct. 114, 54 A.L.R. 1016] [zoning laws, and other police power regulations, must have a substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare].)
­FN 1. Pruneyard is bordered on two sides by private property, on its other sides by public sidewalks and streets.
­FN 2. Article V1, clause 2 of the United States Constitution provides: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
­FN 3. It was clear prior to Eastex that employees' right of self-organization included the right to distribute organizational literature on the employer's property. (Eastex, supra, 437 U.S. 556.) The two parts of the newsletter at issue were a request to write the Legislature opposing a "right-to-work" measure and an expression of opposition to a presidential veto of a minimum wage increase.
­FN 4. The Fair Political Practices Commission filed an amicus brief supporting appellants here. The commission urges that we consider the impact of our decision on exercise of the right to initiate change through the initiative, referendum, and recall processes. The brief points out that, because of the large number of signatures required to succeed in an initiative, referendum, or recall drive, guaranteeing access to voters is essential to make meaningful the right to mount such a drive.
­FN 5. "The importance assumed by the shopping center as a place for large groups of citizens to congregate is revealed by statistics: in 21 of the largest metropolitan areas of the country shopping centers account for 50 percent of the retail trade; in some communities the figure is even higher, such as St. Louis (67 percent) and Boston (70 percent). (Note (1973) Wis.L.Rev. 612, 618 and fn. 51.) Increasingly, such centers are becoming 'miniature downtowns'; some contain major department stores, hotels, apartment houses, office buildings, theatres and churches. (Business Week, Sept. 4, 1971, pp. 34-38; Chain Store Age, Sept. 1971, p. 4.) It has been predicted that there will be 25,000 shopping centers in the United States by 1985. (Publishers Weekly, Feb. 1, 1971, pp. 54-55.) Their significance to shoppers who by choice or necessity avoid travel to the central city is certain to become accentuated in this period of gasoline and energy shortage." (11 Cal.3d at p. 342 (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).)
Fri, 03/30/1979 23 Cal.3d 899 Review - Criminal Appeal Opinion issued
1 MICHAEL ROBINS, a Minor, etc., et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. PRUNEYARD SHOPPING CENTER et al. (Defendants and Respondents)
2 PRUNEYARD SHOPPING CENTER et al. (Defendants and Respondents)
Mar 30 1979 Opinion: Reversed
SCOCAL, Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center , 23 Cal.3d 899 available at: (https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/robins-v-pruneyard-shopping-center-30510) (last visited Thursday June 4, 2020).