Opinion ID: 2597507
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner

Text: Four years later, in Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551, 92 S.Ct. 2219, 33 L.Ed.2d 131 (1972), the United States Supreme Court reconsidered the doctrine set forth in Logan Valley and adopted, by a five-to-four majority, the logic of Justice White's dissent: The basic issue in this case is whether respondents, in the exercise of asserted [f]irst [a]mendment rights, may distribute handbills on Lloyd's private property contrary to its wishes and contrary to a policy enforced against all handbilling. In addressing this issue, it must be remembered that the [f]irst and [f]ourteenth [a]mendments safeguard the rights of free speech and assembly by limitations on state action, not on action by the owner of private property used nondiscriminatorily for private purposes only. .... Respondents contend, however, that the property of a large shopping center is `open to the public,' serves the same purposes as a `business district' of a municipality, and therefore has been dedicated to certain types of public use. The argument is that such a center has sidewalks, streets, and parking areas which are functionally similar to facilities customarily provided by municipalities. It is then asserted that all members of the public, whether invited as customers or not, have the same right of free speech as they would have on the similar public facilities in the streets of a city or town. The argument reaches too far. The Constitution by no means requires such an attenuated doctrine of dedication of private property to public use. The closest decision in theory, Marsh v. Alabama, supra , involved the assumption by a private enterprise of all of the attributes of a state-created municipality and the exercise by that enterprise of semiofficial municipal functions as a delegate of the State. In effect, the owner of the company town was performing the full spectrum of municipal powers and stood in the shoes of the State. In the instant case[,][t]here is no comparable assumption or exercise of municipal functions or power. Nor does property lose its private character merely because the public is generally invited to use it for designated purposes. Few would argue that a free-standing store, with abutting parking space for customers, assumes significant public attributes merely because the public is invited to shop there. Nor is size alone the controlling factor. The essentially private character of a store and its privately owned abutting property does not change by virtue of being large or clustered with other stores in a modern shopping center. .... We hold that there has been no such dedication of Lloyd's privately owned and operated shopping center to public use as to entitle respondents to exercise therein the asserted [f]irst [a]mendment rights. Lloyd, 407 U.S. at 568-570, 92 S.Ct. 2219 (footnotes omitted) (emphases added).