Opinion ID: 1952455
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Manner Restrictions

Text: Paragraph one of the trial court's injunction forbids defendants from gathering, parading, patrolling and picketing    to disrupt, intimidate or harass    and specifically from using obscene or abusive language or insults or epithets   , making loud accusations[,] and shouting statements [that] are abusive   . To avoid a content-based application of the injunction, the Appellate Division construed the quoted language to `protect[] the clinic [only] from loudness and physical intimidation   .' 263 N.J. Super. at 224, 622 A. 2d 891 (quoting Portland Feminist Women's Health Ctr., supra, 859 F. 2d at 684). Although we agree with the Appellate Division's conclusion that the trial court's manner restrictions require modification, we would tailor those restrictions even more narrowly than did the court below. Other courts have upheld narrower restrictions on anti-abortion protestors than those contained in the trial court's injunction. See, e.g., Northeast Women's Ctr., Inc., supra, 939 F. 2d at 63-65, 72 (upholding restriction prohibiting during surgical procedures, recovery periods, and other specified times singing, chanting, use of bullhorns, sound amplification equipment, or other sounds or images observable to or within earshot of patients inside the Center); Portland Feminist Women's Health Ctr., supra, 859 F. 2d at 687 (modifying injunction to prohibit shouting, screaming, chanting, yelling, or producing noise by any other means, in a volume that substantially interferes with the provision of medical services within the Center, including counseling); Project Jericho, supra, 556 N.E. 2d at 161-62 (upholding injunction that prohibits screaming, chanting, speaking or singing in a manner intended to reach or which had the effect of reaching patients inside the clinic). The manner restrictions in the injunction under review should have as their purpose the preservation of health and the safety of medical procedures. In our view the injunction should focus more sharply on the actual problem caused by the noise of the protest: the volume of the noise was so great that it produced a deleterious effect on patients and staff inside the clinic. Therefore, for so much of paragraph one of the injunction as prohibits defendants from gathering, parading, patrolling and picketing the property of [the] Center in such a manner as to disrupt, intimidate or harass the staff, employees or patients or persons accompanying patients of [the] Center and specifically from using obscene or abusive language or insults or epithets directed at [the Center]'s medical and executive staff or at patients or persons accompanying patients desiring to use their professional services and at their employees, and refrain from making loud accusations and shouting statements which are abusive at the aforesaid staff; physicians and/or patients and persons accompanying patients; we substitute the following, prohibiting defendants from screaming, chanting, singing, speaking, yelling, or producing noise in any other manner, in a volume that interferes with the provision of medical services within the Center; The foregoing restriction closely tracks the Jersey City noise ordinance, which prohibits [t]he creation of any excessive noises on any street    adjacent to any hospital    [that] disturbs or unduly annoys patients in the hospital   . Jersey City, N.J., Municipal Code § 16-3(a)(7) (1988). Moreover, the amended restriction is aimed more directly at the harm caused and thus more appropriately reflects a balance between defendants' First Amendment rights and the significant government interests at stake.