Court Opinion

ID: 9696456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:48:33.947151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:22.533926
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(concurring).
I agree with the opinion announcing the judgment that the preliminary injunction was improperly granted. See Commonwealth v. Van Emberg, 464 Pa. 618, 347 A.2d 712 (1975). I also agree that the final decree must be *580reversed. I do not join the opinion announcing the judgment, however, because I cannot agree with the opinion’s intimation that a lawful business may be enjoined as a nuisance merely because it is unpopular and therefore a target of violence. This is especially true where, as here, the business is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The opinion announcing the judgment states, “It is well-settled that even a lawful business may be enjoined if it is shown that, under the particular circumstances of its operation, it constitutes a public nuisance.” Although this is generally true, I believe the rule is subject to an important caveat. When parties are engaged in lawful activity which for some reason is unpopular with other people, the lawful activity may not be enjoined because the dissatisfaction of others erupts into breaches of the peace. Cf. Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 95 S.Ct. 2268, 45 L.Ed.2d 125 (1975); Bachellar v. Maryland, 397 U.S. 564, 90 S.Ct. 1312, 25 L.Ed.2d 570 (1970); Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969); Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 69 S.Ct. 894, 93 L.Ed. 1137 (1949); Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.S. 141, 63 S.Ct. 862, 87 L.Ed. 1313 (1943); Wolin v. Port of New York Authority, 392 F.2d 83 (2d Cir. 1968). The law must act to protect such an activity; it should not become a partner, by its injunction, to the oppression of the lawful, but unpopular, business. What should be enjoined in such a case is the illegal disruptions rather than the lawful enterprise.
Thus, if one family in a community practices a religion to which all others violently object, the practice of the unpopular faith may not be enjoined as a nuisance under the theory that the practice of that religion is the cause of violence. Similarly, a court cannot enjoin the sale of a home to a member of a minority race because others in the neighborhood threaten violence if the sale is consum*581mated. So long as the operation of the bookstore here is lawful, threats of violence or violence itself by those who believe that the store should not be allowed to operate can never, in my view, justify enjoining operation of the store as a nuisance. Such a result would, in effect, reward the wrongdoers whose dissatisfaction has erupted into violence while penalizing those engaged in a constitutionally protected activity.
Therefore, this case should not be read as intimating that an injunction against the operation of the store could have issued if the citizenry had acted more violently toward this business.
POMEROY, NIX and MANDERINO, JJ., join in this concurring opinion.