Opinion ID: 1428244
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Injunction Here Is Similar to a Time, Place and Manner Regulation

Text: A separate, but related, basis for countenancing an injunction in these circumstances is that an injunction restricting speech that creates a racially hostile work environment is analogous to a permissible time, place and manner restriction on speech. As a general matter, speech in even a traditional public forum may be subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions. ( Perry, supra, 460 U.S. at p. 45, 103 S.Ct. 948.) Such restrictions must be content-neutral, serve a significant government interest and leave open ample alternative channels of communication. ( Ibid. ) In a nonpublic forum, the government may also reserve the forum for its intended purposes, communicative or otherwise, as long as the regulation on speech is reasonable and not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker's view. ( Id. at p. 46,103 S.Ct. 948.) Time, place and manner rules generally have been applied to public and nonpublic fora. As a private employer's place of business, defendants' workplace is neither a public nor a nonpublic forum; it is private property. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has on at least one occasion applied [the time, place and manner doctrine] to conduct occurring on private property ( Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc. (1991) 501 U.S. 560, 566, 111 S.Ct. 2456, 115 L.Ed.2d 504 (plur.opn.), referring to Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1986) 475 U.S. 41, 106 S.Ct. 925, 89 L.Ed.2d 29), and adapting to a private workplace the rules applicable to nonpublic fora does not seem inconsistent with the basic goals and purposes of the First Amendment. (See Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc. (M.D.Fla.1991) 760 F.Supp. 1486, 1535 [the regulation of discriminatory speech in the workplace constitutes nothing more than a time, place, and manner regulation of speech].) Private property is rarely dedicated to the purpose of permitting the unrestrained dissemination of speech; common sense suggests that government restrictions on speech that would be impermissible in public and even nonpublic fora may nevertheless be permissible when applied to certain types of private property. [7] We begin with the state's interest in restricting workplace speech that creates a racially hostile work environment. The state has announced that it is the public policy of this state that it is necessary to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain, and hold employment without discrimination or abridgment on account of race.... (Gov. Code, § 12920.) The state recognizes that such discrimination foments domestic strife and unrest, deprives the state of the fullest utilization of its capacities for development and advance, and substantially and adversely affects the interest of employees, employers, and the public in general. ( Ibid. ) Of course, the elimination of racial discrimination, even by private parties or entities, has often been found to be a governmental interest of the highest order. (See, e.g., Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co. (1991) 500 U.S. 614, 111 S.Ct. 2077, 114 L.Ed.2d 660 [exercise of race-based peremptory challenge to juror by private litigant in civil case held unconstitutional]; Bob Jones University v. United States (1983) 461 U.S. 574, 103 S.Ct. 2017, 76 L.Ed.2d 157 [denial of federal tax benefits for private religious schools with racially discriminatory policy upheld]; Jones v. Mayer Co. (1968) 392 U.S. 409, 88 S.Ct. 2186, 20 L.Ed.2d 1189 [federal statute barring racial discrimination in sale or rental of private property valid under the Thirteenth Amendment]; Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) 334 U.S. 1, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161 [enforcement of racially restrictive covenant in private property deed unconstitutional].) In short, the State of California has stated a compelling governmental interest in support of its laws aimed at eliminating racially discriminatory practices in private employment. Restricting Lawrence in the future from engaging in speech that is productive of a racially hostile work environment leaves him ample alternatives for advocating, espousing or simply stating his beliefs. Because I agree with the plurality opinion's affirmance of the Court of Appeal's decision reversing and remanding the case to permit the trial court to redraft the injunction in a manner that ... limits its scope to the workplace, a majority of this court agrees the injunction in this case should be limited to speech in the workplace. Lawrence is thus free to speak anywhere and at any time outside of his place of employment, whether it be in his home, on the sidewalk, in the park, in his local restaurant or on the Internet. Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc. (1994) 512 U.S. 753, 114 S.Ct. 2516, 129 L.Ed.2d 593 ( Madsen ) is illustrative. In that case, protesters picketing an abortion clinic were subject to an injunction that prohibited them from blocking access to the clinic or physically abusing persons entering or leaving it. On finding the injunction to have been violated, the trial court issued a new injunction, providing, inter alia, that demonstrators must (with some exceptions) stay at least 36 feet from clinic driveways and entrances. The demonstrators eventually sought review in the Supreme Court, claiming the new injunction violated their First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court, although striking down other parts of the injunction, upheld the requirement of a 36-foot buffer zone, finding the limitation was a valid time, place and manner restriction on speech. As pertinent to the question here, the high court noted the petitioners are not prevented from expressing their message in any one of several different ways; they are simply prohibited from expressing it within the 36-foot buffer zone. ( Madsen, supra, 512 U.S. at p. 764, fn. 2, 114 S.Ct. 2516.) If the injunction in the instant case is limited on remand to apply to the workplace only, Lawrence similarly will have open to him ample alternative channels of communication. The Supreme Court's existing time, place and manner decisions admittedly do not wholly govern this case, for not only does this case not involve a public forum, the injunction here is not content-neutral. The Supreme Court has stated repeatedly... that time, place, and manner regulations must be content neutral in order to receive deferential judicial review. (Fallon, Sexual Harassment, supra, 1994 Sup. Ct. Rev. at pp. 16-17, fn. omitted.) [The] principal inquiry in determining content neutrality is whether the government has adopted a regulation of speech `without reference to the content of the regulated speech.' ( Madsen, supra, 512 U.S. at p. 763, 114 S.Ct. 2516.) We thus look to the government's purpose as the threshold consideration. ( Ibid. ) The state's purpose here is the elimination of racial discrimination and harassment at the workplace. FEHA thus is clearly concerned with the content of harassing speech; hence, the injunction cannot be classified as content-neutral. This fact has led some commentators to conclude that reliance on the time, place and manner doctrine in the employment harassment setting is misplaced. (Volokh, Workplace Harassment, supra, 39 U.C.L.A. L.Rev. at pp. 1826-1828; Browne, Title VII as Censorship, supra, 52 Ohio St. L.J. at p. 521.) As noted at the beginning of this opinion, no Supreme Court decision is directly on point; accordingly, we do not know how that court would balance the diverse interests present here. Whether the content-based nature of the injunction wholly disqualifies the time, place and manner doctrine from any application to this case need not be decided, however. Instead, it is sufficient to consider components of the doctrine as relevant to the overall assessment of whether the injunction violates defendant Lawrence's First Amendment rights. When those componentsa compelling state interest and alternative channels of communication are considered together with the facts the speech sought to be enjoined occurred in the workplace and the recipients of the unwelcome speech were a captive audience, a strong case for upholding the injunction appears. We must consider the implications of a contrary holding. The state's interest in eradicating racial discrimination in the workplace is compelling, and the state has made a reasonable determination that such discrimination causes domestic strife and unrest and is harmful to the interest of employees, employers, and the public in general. (Gov.Code, § 12920.) The state's interest is fully applicable to this case, as it is undisputed the speech in question occurred at the workplace where both plaintiffs and defendant Lawrence work. Plaintiffs do not wish to listen to Lawrence's constant stream [8] of verbiage denigrating them on account of their Latino heritage, but they are not free, as a practical matter, to leave their jobs to avoid being the targets of his racial slurs. Lawrence, on the other hand, is free to speak his mind anywhere and everywhere, with the sole exception of the workplace. Diverse interests are in play in this case, and balancing them is undeniably a difficult task. Were we to find the injunction violates Lawrence's First Amendment rights, we would be concluding those rights outweigh the rights of the Latino plaintiffs to be free of unwanted racial discrimination. Like Lawrence's asserted interest in free speech, however, plaintiffs' interest also finds recognition in our federal Constitution (U.S. Const., Amends. XIII, XIV, XV; see Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer (1976) 427 U.S. 445, 453, 96 S.Ct. 2666, 49 L.Ed.2d 614 & fn. 9 [Congress exercising powers under section 5 of the 14th Amendment when it passed relevant amendments to title VII]). Given the constellation of factors present in this case, no clear reason appears why Lawrence's free speech rights should predominate over the state's and the individual plaintiffs' similarly weighty antidiscrimination interests. Balancing Lawrence's First Amendment free speech rights with the equally weighty right of plaintiffs to be let alone at their jobsite, free of racial discrimination, I find the several factors coalescing in this casespeech occurring in the workplace, an unwilling and captive audience, a compelling state interest in eradicating racial discrimination, and ample alternative speech venues for the speakersupport the conclusion that the injunction, if sufficiently narrowed on remand to apply to the workplace only, will pass constitutional muster.