Court Opinion

ID: 9419236
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:47:49.980266+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:16.519229
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
concurring:
If the opinion in this case means that a State can prohibit picketing when it is effective but may not prohibit it when it is ineffective, then I think we have made a basic departure from Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88. We *776held in that case that “the dissemination of information concerning the facts of a labor dispute must be regarded as within that area of free discussion that is guaranteed by the Constitution.” p. 102. While we recognized that picketing could be regulated, we stated (p. 104-105): “Abridgment of the liberty of such discussion can be justified only where the clear danger of substantive evils arises under circumstances affording no opportunity to test the merits of ideas by competition for acceptance in the market of public opinion.” And we added (p. 105): “But no clear and present danger of destruction of life or property, or invasion of the right of privacy, or breach of the peace can be thought to be inherent in the activities of every person who approaches the premises of an .employer and publicizes the facts of a labor dispute involving the latter.” For that reason we invoked the test, employed in comparable situations (Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 307; Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252) that the statute which is the source of the restriction on free speech must be “narrowly drawn to cover the precise situation giving rise to the danger.” p. 105.
We recognized that picketing might have a coercive effect: “It may be that effective exercise of the means of advancing public knowledge may persuade some of those reached to refrain from entering into advantageous relations with the business establishment which is the scene of the dispute. Every expression of opinion on matters that are important has the potentiality of inducing action in the interests of one rather than another group in society.” p. 104.
Picketing by an organized group is more ■ than free speech, since it involves patrol of a particular locality and since the very presence of a picket line may induce action of one kind or another, quite irrespective of the nature of the ideas which are being disseminated. Hence those as*777pects of picketing make it the subject of restrictive regulation.
But since “dissemination of information concerning the facts of a labor dispute” is constitutionally protected, a State is not free to define “labor dispute” so narrowly as to accomplish indirectly what it may not accomplish directly. That seems to me to be what New York has done here. Its statute (Civil Practice Act, § 876a), as construed and applied, in effect eliminates communication of ideas through peaceful picketing in connection with a labor controversy arising out of the business of a certain class of retail bakers. But the statute is not a regulation of picketing per se — narrov/ly drawn, of general application, and regulating the use of the streets by all picketeers. In substance it merely sets apart a particular enterprise and frees it from all picketing. If the principles of the Thornhill case are to survive, I do not see how New York can be allowed to draw that line.
Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Murphy join in this opinion.