Court Opinion

ID: 9794851
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:12:51.674342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:21:17.118815
License: Public Domain

Finley, J.
(concurring in the result) — I concur in the result of the majority opinion by Hunter, C. J. As that opinion states, the city of Tacoma has made no showing *71which would justify a restriction upon the speech forum involved — advertising displayed upon city transit buses. The evidence presented by the city fell short of meeting common understanding of the clear and present danger test. More particularly, the proof falls short of what I consider to be a more refined and preferable application of the clear and present danger test. No convincing showing has been made as to reasonably foreseeable harm to, interference with, or disruption of Tacoma’s public transportation system. Cf. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 21 L. Ed. 2d 731, 89 S. Ct. 733 (1969).
Before further discussion regarding the application of the clear and present danger test to the instant factual situation, certain aspects of the city’s attempt at contractual regulation of the advertising should be evaluated. The sole regulatory criterion was that advertising “objectionable to the city” could be rejected. The purported criterion is completely lacking in objective content, and renders official review of material submitted for display upon the buses utterly subjective. While such a criterion may be enforceable as to material unprotected by the First Amendment, such a criterion fails for vagueness in the face of the values embodied in and protected by the First Amendment. E.g., Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. Dallas, 390 U.S. 676, 20 L. Ed. 2d 225, 88 S.Ct. 1298 (1968).
Even if the standard chosen could survive a vagueness attack on its face, it would fall for its commitment of unfettered discretion into the hands of the enforcing official. Cox. v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 557-58, 13 L. Ed. 2d 471, 85 S. Ct. 453 (1965); Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U.S. 268, 95 L. Ed. 267, 71 S. Ct. 325 (1951).
The criterion additionally fails on its face for over-breadth. Narrowly drawn and properly promulgated standards could exclude from the buses that advertising which the city has a substantial police power interest in controlling and which it has constitutional power to control. The exercise of First Amendment rights may not be interfered with or restricted except for the protection of valid inter*72ests which cannot be protected by alternative means. In re Hoffman, 67 Cal. 2d 845, 434 P.2d 353 (1967) (Traynor, C.J.); Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U.S. 11, 16 L. Ed. 2d 321, 86 S. Ct. 1238 (1966) (freedom of association); Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 5 L. Ed. 2d 231, 81 S. Ct. 247 (1960) (freedom of association).
'There is no need for further discussion of the infirmities inherent in Tacoma’s attempted regulatory action. As indicated by the majority, that action appears to have resulted from some misconception regarding archaic distinctions between so-called proprietary and governmental functions, and from reliance on that misconception as conferring upon the city’s action some sort of immunity from the state and federal constitutions. The majority opinion sufficiently demonstrates the error in thinking into which the city seems to have fallen.
It is desirable, however, that the city’s gross miscalculation of its power should not be occasion for misleading and ill-measured statements by this court. For that reason, I believe it necessary to elaborate on the reasoning of the majority.
It is obvious that the primary public function of the city transit operation is public transportation. The speech which may take place in conjunction with this primary function is something of a happenstance. However, it is clear that a forum function which does not interfere with the primary purpose of a facility open to the public may not be interfered with except in protection of valid interests which cannot be protected by alternative means. In re Hoffman, supra.
It is therefore necessary to ask, as to each of the precedents relied on by the majority, upon what circumstance the deciding court relied in finding that a forum was in existence, and what interest the deciding court evaluated in considering whether or not the advertising could be barred.
Wirta v. Alameda-Contra Costa Transit Dist., 68 Cal. 2d 51, 64 Cal. Rptr. 430, 434 P.2d 982 (1967) relies upon an a fortiori argument that permitting the display of commer*73cial advertising has the effect of opening a well nigh limitless forum. I find the argument most unconvincing.1 However, on facts which are essentially those of the instant case, Kissinger v. New York City Transit Authority, 274 F. Supp. 438 (S.D. N.Y. 1967), held that a forum was in existence. I do not challenge the majority’s conclusion in the instant case that a forum did exist.
A forum cannot exist unless the speech activity in question can be carried on without substantial interference with the primary function of the asserted forum. In re Hoffman, supra; Brown v. Louisiana, 383 U.S. 131, 15 L. Ed. 2d 637, 86 S. Ct. 719 (1966). Compare Adderley v. Florida, 385 U.S. 39, 17 L. Ed. 2d 149, 87 S. Ct. 242 (1966) with Brown. See generally Kalven, The Concept of the Public Forum, 1965 Supreme Ct. Bev. 1,12-22, 29-32.
It is unclear whether the determination that substantial interference with the asserted forum’s primary purpose will result is entirely a judicial question. Compare Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., supra, with Public Util. Comm’n v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451, 96 L. Ed. 1068, 72 S. Ct. 813 (1952). It is unnecessary to face that question in the instant case.
Wirta and Kissinger defer to an initial administrative judgment to allow advertising. Poliak carefully deferred to administrative findings, but the court with equal care refused to find that free speech issues had been raised. In Tinker, faced with those issues in a school classroom, the *74court gave no credence to arguments that the wearing of armbands was disruptive of the educational process, the administrative guardianship of which was committed to the school board.2
Absent a clear United States Supreme Court holding to the contrary, I believe that it was within the city’s power in this case to close the forum by officially binding itself to the rejection of all noncommercial bus advertising.3 Tacoma took no such action.
Since a forum was in existence, the question which has, in my opinion, been misleadingly answered by the majority is: What showing is required to close the forum to expression of a specific idea or appeal? The majority opinion states: “There being an absence of any substantial showing of clear and present danger caused by the display of the posters, we hold that the defendants’ actions were unconstitutional.”
The circumstances that a First Amendment defense is often asserted in response to charges of disorderly conduct, incitement to riot, or violation of anti-subversion laws has produced an unfortunate result. “Clear and present danger” is of itself meaningless. Danger requires that something or someone be imperiled. The term has, through the circumstance to which I refer, acquired a connotation of danger of riot, disorder, or organized subversion. This connotation is utterly absent from Mr. Justice Holmes dictum in Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52, 63 L. Ed. 470, 39 S. Ct. 247 (1919) :
The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent..
(Italics mine.)
*75The majority, quoting Kissinger, 274 F. Supp. at 442, has thereby glossed Schenck with Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 84 L. Ed. 1213, 60 S. Ct. 900, 128 A.L.R. 1352 (1940). The Kissinger opinion quotes Cantwell as follows:
“When clear and present danger of riot, disorder, interference with traffic upon the public streets, or other immediate threat to public safety, peace, or order, appears, the power of the state to prevent or punish is obvious.
(quoting Cantwell, 310 U.S. at 308.) When it is recalled that Cantwell, a Jehovah’s Witness, was charged with breach of the peace for playing recordings of a vitriolic attack on Roman Catholicism to persons accosted on the street in a Catholic neighborhood in New Haven, the aptness of the language quoted as applied to Cantwell is at once apparent.
Similarly, the majority quotes from Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 4, 93 L. Ed. 1131, 69 S. Ct. 894 (1949), a passage containing the phrase “unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest ...” (Italics added by majority.) That was the showing required to convict Father Terminiello.4 If such a showing were not required, police could respond to an attack upon a peaceful but impopular meeting by arresting the speaker instead of the attackers.
The majority opinion has cited the cases analyzed above and relied upon the quoted language in an inapposite manner. “Clear and present danger” cannot be discussed without discussion of the substantive evil whose danger threatens. That evil must be something which there is legislative power to prevent.
Having discussed the circumstances which call a forum *76into existence, and the manner in which the majority applied the clear and present danger test in that forum, I must return to the second portion of what I believe a pertinent and necessary analysis should include in this case. The interest which the court evaluated in deciding if particular advertising could be barred must be isolated. Kissinger, at 442, recognizes that the advertising must be displayed “unless the posters present a serious and immediate threat to the safe and efficient operation of the subways.” (Italics mine.) The evil whose danger may be protected against is not insurrection but interference with the transportation system. Wirta v. Alameda-Constra Costa Transit Dist., 68 Cal. 2d 51, 60, 64 Cal. Rptr. 430, 434 P.2d 982, 988 (1967), simply paraphrases Holmes — “clear and present danger that a serious substantive evil will result ...”
It appears to me that for the purposes of the instant case the substantive evil against which the law may protect is interference with the transportation system; for if interference with the transportation system occurs, the system has been diverted from its primary function, and the forum, by definition, disappears. In re Hoffman, supra; Kissinger v. New York City Transit Authority, supra. Accord: Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., supra.
For the above reasons, I believe that the showing required of the city is simply convincing proof that reasonably foreseeable harm to, disruption of, or interference with the public transportation system would result from display of the challenged advertising.
A brief examination of the record is now in order. The trial court specifically refused to enter an offered finding of fact stating that the city officials became concerned as to incidents threatening the lives and safety of the citizens of the city and as to damage to both city and private property after various city officials had received letters, telephone calls, and complaints about the signs.
The trial court did find:
The signs in question, as .worded and printed and as displayed, did not in themselves, nor did the word content *77thereof, pose a clear and present danger to the government or the welfare of the society in any fashion or means whatsoever, nor was it or is it in any way detrimental to the welfare of the community from the viewpoint of a clear and present danger.
(Italics mine.)
It is clear from the above findings that the trial court refused to believe the city’s arguments as to the weight which the vague complaints mentioned should be given in forecasting interference with the buses or the probability of disorderly demonstrations.
My disagreement with the majority opinion arises from a belief that it may be read as approving the display of messages designed to inflame racial or political passion or tensions in the face of a showing that a disruption of transit operations by interference with either buses or their passengers could be reasonably foreseen. That is not, and never has been, the law. The city is not required to sacrifice essential public services to a quixotic pursuit of pandemonium. Cf. Adderley v. Florida, supra. The city is required to make a proper showing before barring innocuous posters from its buses. In its adverse reaction to the facts of the instant case, this court ought not decide it in such a manner that public officials are misinstructed as to their duties, responsibilities, and official discretion.
For the reasons given, I concur in the result of the majority opinion.
Hamilton and Neill, JJ., concur with Finley, J.

The argument is unconvincing for two reasons.
The a fortiori form assumes that the interests involved in commercial expression and first amendment speech are the same and hence that to allow the former means the latter must be allowed. But the transit system may have allowed the former because the messages which it conveys are unimportant, do not reach fundamental values, and do not deeply arouse emotional responses. It may be tolerable precisely because it is trivial.
The use in the argument of the concurring opinion from Cox v. Louisiana, supra, weakens it severely. Justice Black’s view of the statute in Cox as void on its face is not shared by the rest of the court, which stopped short of that decision. Moreover, even if the Black view is correct, it is applicable here only if commercial advertising is protected speech. This is not the law. See note 3, infra.

See the vigorous dissent per Black, J., as to the unsuitability oí schools as a íorum ior student protest, and the deference owed to the school administrators’ decision.

Commereial advertising is subject to an entirely different regulatory test. Valentine v. Chrestensen, 316 U.S. 52, 86 L. Ed. 1262, 62 S. Ct. 920, (1942) and see Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U.S. 622, 95 L. Ed. 1233, 71 S. Ct. 920 (1951).

Terminiello was convicted of breach of the peace under an instruction allowing conviction for behavior which “stirs the public to anger, invites dispute, brings about a condition of unrest, or creates a disturbance.” 337 U.S. at 3. Because of the general verdict, the instruction was read into the ordinance, and Terminiello’s conduct was reviewed on the instruction, not the facts. On that reading of the record, Terminiello was convicted for a relatively peaceful speech to a sympathetic audience, which was disrupted by mob violence. The actual facts which provoked the prosecution are detailed in Mr. Justice Jackson’s vigorous dissent.