Opinion ID: 2186268
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Are sections 181.75 and 181.76 unconstitutionally overbroad ?

Text: In analyzing this question, the trial court concluded that the speech affected by sections 181.75 and 181.76 was commercial speech, thereby invoking the type of judicial review accorded regulations of commercial speech rather than that accorded regulations of noncommercial expression. With that conclusion we agree. Commercial speech is protected by the first amendment. Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission, 447 U.S. 557, 561, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 2348, 65 L.Ed.2d 341 (1980); Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 762, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 1825, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976). But the State does not lose its power to regulate commercial activity deemed harmful to the public whenever speech is a component of that activity. Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U.S. 447, 456, 98 S.Ct. 1912, 1918, 56 L.Ed.2d 444 (1978). Commercial speech is given a limited measure of protection, commensurate with its subordinate position in the scale of First Amendment values,   allowing modes of regulation that might be impermissible in the realm of noncommercial expression. Id. Commercial speech is expression related solely to the economic interests of the speaker and its audience. Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission, 447 U.S. 557, 561, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 2348, 65 L.Ed.2d 341 (1980). It includes speech which does no more than propose a commercial transaction, such as price advertising. Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 762, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 1825, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976) (quoting Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Relations Commission, 413 U.S. 376, 385, 93 S.Ct. 2553, 2558, 37 L.Ed.2d 669 (1973)). We find no abstract definition of commercial speech, but there is a `common-sense' distinction between speech proposing a commercial transaction    and other varieties of speech. Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U.S. 447, 455-56, 98 S.Ct. 1912, 1918, 56 L.Ed.2d 444 (1978). Defendants, who disagree that the speech in issue is commercial speech, have suggested that the doctrine of commercial speech is intended to be limited to the context of advertising related to goods and services and should not be extended to the case before us involving communication in the context of employment. Defendants suggest that we should proceed cautiously in striking forth into the uncharted area of commercial speech. Although the few cases in this area reaching the Supreme Court have discussed questions of service and price advertising, [9] other courts have expanded the doctrine beyond that limited context. In Harris v. Beneficial Finance Co., 338 So.2d 196 (Fla. 1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 950, 97 S.Ct. 1591, 51 L.Ed.2d 800 (1977), the commercial speech doctrine was applied to the communication between agents of a finance company and a debtor's employer. See Equifax Services, Inc. v. Cohen, 420 A.2d 189 (Me. 1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 916, 101 S.Ct. 1360, 67 L.Ed.2d 342 (1981) (commercial speech assumed arguendo to include credit information collected under the Maine Fair Credit Reporting Act); Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association v. Environmental Protection Agency, 627 F.2d 1095 (D.C. Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 952, 100 S.Ct. 2917, 64 L.Ed.2d 808 (1980) (communication of maintenance information by manufacturer to consumer found to be commercial speech); K.D. v. Educational Testing Service, 87 Misc.2d 657, 386 N.Y.S.2d 747 (1976) (publication of test results held to be commercial speech). In our view, there is no question but that the speech affected by sections 181.75 and 181.76 is commercial speech. An employer is not deprived of his or her first amendment right to communicate views, arguments, or opinions to employees by sections 181.75 and 181.76. See NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., 395 U.S. 575, 617, 89 S.Ct. 1918, 1941, 23 L.Ed.2d 547 (1969). The employer who solicits or requires an employee to have a lie detector examination does not wish to editorialize on any subject, cultural, philosophical, or political. He does not wish to report any particularly newsworthy fact, or to make generalized observations even about commercial matters. Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 761, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 1825, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976). An employer engaging in the verbal activity of soliciting or requiring these examinations does not have any purpose other than the advancement of his or her business interests. The defendants have claimed that sections 181.75 and 181.76 are overbroad. A statute is overbroad if within its reach it prohibits constitutionally protected activity, as well as activity which may be prohibited without offending constitutional rights. Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 114, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 2302, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972). The defendants' standing to challenge these statutes as facially overbroad does not depend upon whether their own activity is or is not privileged itself. Village of Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 444 U.S. 620, 634, 100 S.Ct. 826, 834, 63 L.Ed.2d 73 (1980); Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350, 379-80, 97 S.Ct. 2691, 2706-07, 53 L.Ed.2d 810 (1977); State v. Hipp, 298 Minn. 81, 86-87, 213 N.W.2d 610, 614 (1973). We allow persons to challenge a statute, even if their own speech may be validly prohibited, because of the possibility that protected speech may be chilled by the overly broad reach of a statute. See, e. g., Village of Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 444 U.S. 620, 100 S.Ct. 826, 63 L.Ed.2d 73 (1980). See generally Note, The First Amendment Overbreadth Doctrine, 83 Harv.L.Rev. 844, 853-54 (1970). The Supreme Court has stated that the overbreadth doctrine is inapplicable in certain commercial speech cases, Village of Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 444 U.S. 620, 634, 100 S.Ct. 826, 834, 63 L.Ed.2d 73 (1980), such as Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, in which it was held that a disciplinary regulation could not be applied to prohibit truthful attorney advertising in a newspaper. This is so because commercial speech is a hardy breed of expression that is not `particularly susceptible to being crushed by overbroad regulation,' Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission, 447 U.S. 557, 564 n.6, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 2350 n.6, 65 L.Ed.2d 341 (1980) (quoting Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 443 U.S. 350, 381, 97 S.Ct. 2691, 2707, 53 L.Ed.2d 810 (1977)). Unlike price advertising for goods or services, which clearly involves commercial speech alone, sections 181.75 and 181.76 potentially inhibit noncommercial speech. For example, an employer's letter to the editor of the local newspaper on the subject of polygraph testing would not necessarily be commercial speech and it might, in a rare case, constitute solicit[ing] or requir[ing] in violation of section 181.75. Because of this potential danger, we do not feel that this is one of the certain commercial speech cases in which the overbreadth doctrine is inappropriate. Defendants' claim is that regulation of employer speech is permissible only if it proscribes some element of coercion. Failing to limit its prohibition to coercion, section 181.75 would then be overbroad. Defendants base their claim on their interpretation of NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., 395 U.S. 575, 89 S.Ct. 1918, 23 L.Ed.2d 547 (1969), which we find to be incorrect. In Gissel Packing an employer had been found to have committed unfair labor practices under federal labor laws. The Court rejected the employer's first amendment claim, holding that one subdivision of the labor laws merely implements the First Amendment by requiring that the expression of any views, argument, or opinion shall not be evidence of an unfair labor practice, so long as such expression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit in violation of § 8(a)(1). Section 8(a)(1), in turn, prohibits interference, restraint or coercion of employees in the exercise of their right to self-organization. Id. at 617, 89 S.Ct. at 1941 (emphasis added). We cannot agree with defendants that the quoted passage is intended to mean that the only regulations of any kind of employer speech which will pass constitutional muster are those prohibiting coercive speech. Defendants' argument was no doubt bottomed on the fact that section 181.75 at one time specifically prohibited coercion, but was amended in 1976 to omit that word. See Act of Apr. 13, 1976, ch. 256, 1976 Minn.Laws 950. The first version of the statute, enacted in 1973, stated that [n]o employer or agent thereof shall by direct or indirect coercion request or require a polygraph or any test purporting to test the honesty of any employee or prospective employee. Act of May 24, 1973, ch. 667, § 1, 1973 Minn.Laws 1760 (emphasis added). We stress that the word coercion is no talisman of constitutionality for a statute prohibiting commercial speech. But we note that an element of coercion is nevertheless implicit in the statute as it now reads because of the unequal position of an employee vis-a-vis an employer. The employer wields power because he or she controls the employee's job. When an employee is asked by an employer to submit to a polygraph or similar examination, he or she often has no realistic alternative but to agree. State v. Community Distributors, Inc., 64 N.J. 479, 484, 317 A.2d 697, 699 (1974). We find that section 181.75 is not overbroad due to the absence of the word coercion from the statute. Unless sections 181.75 and 181.76 are otherwise impermissible regulations of commercial speech, our discussion would end here. Defendants claim that section 181.75 prohibits speech on a certain subject and seeks to suppress entirely the expression of certain ideas. Section 181.76, which prohibits disclosing that an individual has taken a polygraph or similar examination or the results of it, is said to be an all-inclusive gag order and outright censorship, akin to the prior restraint outlawed 50 years ago in Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 51 S.Ct. 625, 75 L.Ed. 1357 (1931). Laws which prohibit persons from speaking certain words or conveying certain ideas are not often tolerated by the first amendment. Regulations of noncommercial expression may be upheld only when the law is a narrowly tailored means of serving a compelling state interest, Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Commission, 447 U.S. 530, 535, 100 S.Ct. 2326, 2332, 65 L.Ed.2d 319 (1980), and seldom will a state's interest be so compelling as to justify a blanket prohibition of the utterance of certain words or information. But, because of the differences between commercial expression and noncommercial expression, regulations of commercial speech such as the ones at issue here may be tolerated even if, literally, they prohibit an employer from speaking words which convey to an employee that he or she is required to take a polygraph or similar test or is being solicited to do so. Regulations of commercial speech will be upheld not if the state's interest is compelling and the means narrowly tailored, but rather if the regulations withstand a four-part analysis summarized in the Central Hudson Gas case: For commercial speech to come within [the protection of the first amendment], it at least must concern lawful activity and not be misleading. Next, we ask whether the asserted governmental interest is substantial. If both inquiries yield positive answers, we must determine whether the regulation directly advances the governmental interest asserted, and whether it is not more extensive than is necessary to serve that interest. 447 U.S. 557, 566, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 2351, 65 L.Ed.2d 341. [10] Plaintiff State of Minnesota argues that the speech at issue here is misleading and therefore falls outside of first amendment protection under the first part of the above analysis. In Central Hudson Gas, as an example of unprotected communications which are more likely to deceive the public than to inform it, id. at 563, 100 S.Ct. at 2349, the Supreme Court cited Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U.S. 447, 98 S.Ct. 1912, 56 L.Ed.2d 444 (1978). Plaintiff asserts this case is similar to Ohralik. The court in Ohralik upheld a state disciplinary rule prohibiting lawyers from soliciting clients in person. To offer his legal services, Ohralik had approached an 18-year-old victim of an automobile accident in her hospital room and the 18-year-old passenger at her home, at a time when they were especially incapable of making informed judgments or of assessing and protecting their own interests. Id. at 467, 98 S.Ct. at 1924. This conduct illustrated the potential for overreaching that is inherent in a lawyer's in-person solicitation of professional employment and the need for the disciplinary rule prohibiting such conduct. Id. at 468, 98 S.Ct. at 1924. Plaintiff claims a potential for overreaching in the situation before us because of the unequal positions of employer and employee. The State reasons that the employer speech must be likely to deceive, as was the speech in Ohralik. But that is not the case. In Ohralik, the overreaching of the lawyer could cause the victim to be misled into hiring a lawyer without having the opportunity to gather more information and to make her decision in an unpressured situation. Here compulsion is present, but there is no lack of information, or of complete information, affecting in some way the employee's decision-making process. Indeed, the information conveyed by an employer when he or she requires or solicits a polygraph or similar examination is all too clear. The employees are not misled; they are simply coerced. We next consider whether the state interest justifying sections 181.75 and 181.76 is substantial. The defendants have not suggested that the state could not or did not show that sections 181.75 and 181.76 further substantial state interests. [11] As we view the record in this case, [12] the plaintiff State of Minnesota has not failed to show a substantial state interest. The state's interests here are several: encouraging the maintenance of a harmonious atmosphere in employment relationships which may be disturbed by the coercion to take a polygraph or similar examination; protecting an employee's expectation of privacy which he or she may have if the questions put during these examinations are personal, private, or confidential; discouraging practices which demean or appear to demean the dignity of an individual employee in a significant way; protecting employees from adverse inferences drawn if they refuse to take these tests; and avoiding the coercive impact present in the solicitation. No one can doubt the importance of regulating the employment relationship to discourage unfair or potentially unfair practices. See, e. g., Minn.Stat. chs. 181, 181A, 181B, 182, 185 (1980). In our courts we have questioned the validity of polygraph examinations and refused to allow the results of such tests to be admitted as competent evidence. See C.M.C. v. A.P.F., 257 N.W.2d 282 (Minn.1977), appeal dismissed, 434 U.S. 1029, 98 S.Ct. 759, 54 L.Ed.2d 777 (1978); State v. Goblirsch, 309 Minn. 401, 407, 246 N.W.2d 12, 15 (1976). [13] We note that the State of Minnesota is not alone in prohibiting employers from compelling employees to take polygraph or similar tests. [14] Next we focus on the relationship between the state's interest and the regulation of commercial speech imposed by sections 181.75 and 181.76. We find this relationship to be constitutionally adequate because there is a direct link between prohibiting solicitation or requirement of polygraph and similar tests and achieving the ends sought by the legislature. These ends are the elimination of the adverse effects of such action by the employer on the individual employee or the employment relationship. What is proscribed by the statute precisely captures the harms envisioned by the legislature. See Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U.S. 447, 464, 98 S.Ct. 1912, 1922, 56 L.Ed.2d 444 (1978). Finally, we consider whether sections 181.75 and 181.76 are not more extensive than necessary to serve the interest of the state. Defendants suggested, in another context, that the state might choose to license polygraph examiners. Several states have undertaken licensing of polygraph examiners. [15] But it is apparent that licensing the examiner does not at all meet the problems of the coercion of employees by employers nor the assaults upon the dignity of the employee. See Hermann, supra note 13, at 101-02. Nor does licensing affect the problem of disclosure of test results. Had the legislature chosen to prohibit the use of polygraph or similar examinations in the employment context, that too would not have affected the plight of an employee who is solicited to take the test but refuses to do so and whose employment status suffers as a consequence. Such a prohibition of the use of the polygraph or similar examinations in the employment context would itself be more extensive than necessary because it would prohibit the purely voluntary offer of polygraph results by an employee. Moreover, prohibition of the use would not protect a person who has taken an examination from the disclosure of the results. Sections 181.75 and 181.76 do not appear to be more extensive than necessary. Having applied the four-part analysis of Central Hudson Gas, we conclude that sections 181.75 and 181.76 impose no unconstitutional limitation on commercial speech. The two sections are not overbroad and defendants' first certified question must be answered in the negative.