Court Opinion

ID: 9629321
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:40:38.913029+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:17.884671
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
concurring in part and concurring in the result.
For the reasons stated by Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice Black in their separate opinions in NLRB v. Fruit Packers, 377 U. S. 58, 76, 80 (Tree Fruits), I am persuaded that Congress intended to prohibit this secondary picketing, and for the reasons stated by Mr. Justice Powell, I agree that this case is not governed by Tree Fruits. I therefore join Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion.
The constitutional issue, however, is not quite as easy as the plurality would make it seem because, as Mr. Justice Black pointed out in Tree Fruits, “we have a case in which picketing, otherwise lawful, is banned only when the picketers express particular views.” Id., at 79. In other words, this is another situation in which regulation of the means of expression is predicated squarely on its content. See Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm’n, ante, at 546 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). I agree with the plurality that this content-based restriction is permissible but not simply because it is in furtherance of objectives deemed unlawful by Congress. Ante, at 616. That a statute proscribes the otherwise lawful expression of views in a particular manner and at a particular location cannot in itself totally justify the restriction. Otherwise the First Amendment would place no limit on Congress’ power. In my judgment, it is our responsibility to determine whether the method or manner of expression, considered in context, justifies the particular restriction.
I have little difficulty in concluding that the restriction at issue in this case is constitutional. Like so many other kinds *619of expression, picketing is a mixture of conduct and communication. In the labor context, it is the conduct element rather than the particular idea being expressed that often provides the most persuasive deterrent to third persons about to enter a business establishment. In his concurring opinion in Bakery Drivers v. Wohl, 315 U. S. 769, 776-777, Mr. Justice Douglas stated:
“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 aspects of picketing make it the subject of restrictive regulation.”*
Indeed, no doubt the principal reason why handbills containing the same message are so much less effective than labor picketing is that the former depend entirely on the persuasive force of the idea.
The statutory ban in this case affects only that aspect of the union’s efforts to communicate its views that calls for an automatic response to a signal, rather than a reasoned response to an idea. And the restriction on picketing is limited in geographical scope to sites of neutrals in the labor dispute. Because I believe that such restrictions on conduct are sufficiently justified by the purpose to avoid embroiling neutrals in a third party’s labor dispute, I agree that the statute is consistent with the First Amendment.

See also Teamsters v. Vogt, Inc., 354 U. S. 284, 289; Hughes v. Superior Court, 339 U. S. 460, 465-466, 468.