Opinion ID: 1410654
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: DOES Lloyd IDENTIFY SPECIAL PROPERTY RIGHTS PROTECTED BY THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION?

Text: 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. The court stated, 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 First Amendment rights. (407 U.S. at p. 570 [33 L.Ed.2d at p. 143].) 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. 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. [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, 437 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 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.) We do not minimize the importance of the constitutional guarantees attaching to private ownership of property; but as long as 50 years ago it was already `thoroughly established in this country that the rights preserved to the individual by these constitutional provisions are held in subordination to the rights of society. Although one owns property, he may not do with it as he pleases any more than he may act in accordance with his personal desires. As the interest of society justifies restraints upon individual conduct, so, also, does it justify restraints upon the use to which property may be devoted. It was not intended by these constitutional provisions to so far protect the individual in the use of his property as to enable him to use it to the detriment of society. By thus protecting individual rights, society did not part with the power to protect itself or to promote its general well-being. Where the interest of the individual conflicts with the interest of society, such individual interest is subordinated to the general welfare.' ( Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. v. Superior Court, supra, 16 Cal.3d at p. 403, holding that use of private property may be restricted because of the public interest in collective bargaining, and quoting Miller v. Board of Public Works (1925) 195 Cal. 477, 488 [234 P. 381, 38 A.L.R. 1479].) (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 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.) (1b) Several years have passed since this court decided Diamond II. Since that time central business districts apparently have continued to yield their functions more and more to suburban centers. Evidence submitted by appellants in this case helps dramatize the potential impact of the public forums sought here: (1) As of 1970, 92.2 percent of the county's population lived outside the central San Jose planning area in suburban or rural communities. (2) From 1960 to 1970 central San Jose experienced a 4.7 percent decrease in population as compared with an overall 67 percent increase for the 19 north county planning areas. (3) Retail sales in the central business district declined to such an extent that statistics have not been kept since 1973. In 1972 that district accounted for only 4.67 percent of the county's total retail sales. (4) In a given 30-day period between October 1974 and July 1975 adults making one or more shopping trips to the 15 largest shopping centers in the metropolitan San Jose statistical area totaled 685,000 out of 788,000 adults living within that area. (5) The largest segment of the county's population is likely to spend the most significant amount of its time in suburban areas where its needs and wants are satisfied; and shopping centers provide the location, goods, and services to satisfy those needs and wants. 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 citizenry through initiative, referendum, and recall. (Cal. Const., art. II, §§ 8, 9, and 13.) [4] (5) To protect free speech and petitioning is a goal that surely matches the protecting of health and safety, the environment, aesthetics, property values and other societal goals that have been held to justify reasonable restrictions on private property rights.