Court Opinion

ID: 9629718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:47:47.523592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:22.677079
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent.
Plaintiff brought this action seeking a declaratory judgment that defendant’s1 suspension of plaintiff’s business, theater, and soft drink licenses was improper and, by an extraordinary writ, to arrest the implementation of the suspension. On plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment the District Court of Salt Lake County ruled in favor of defendant.
On appeal plaintiff contends that defendant’s suspension of plaintiff’s licenses, based solely on a previous obscenity conviction, is an unconstitutional “prior restraint” on freedom of speech.
I find no meaningful distinction between defendant’s license revocation in this matter and the use of a “nuisance” injunction to close a business based on prior obscenity conviction, which I addressed in my dissenting opinion in Ogden City v. Eagle Books, Utah, 586 P.2d 436 (1978), decided this date, and which I concluded was an unconstitutional incursion into free speech. In both instances the result is the same — an absolute prohibition on the distribution of presumptively protected material — and in both instances this result is constitutionally infirm.
Defendant bases its argument overwhelmingly on the case of 106 Forsyth Corporation v. Bishop, 362 F.Supp. 1389 (M.D.Ga.1972), aff’d 482 F.2d 280 (CA5 1973), cert. denied 422 U.S. 1044, 95 S.Ct. 2660, 45 L.Ed.2d 696 (1974). Plaintiff admits that Forsyth supports defendant’s contention but argues that Forsyth is an “aberration”; a characterization I believe to be correct.
Forsyth is contrary to all the cases decided before it2 and has been specifically rejected by every court that has subsequently considered it.3
A subsequent Fifth Circuit case, Universal Amusement Co. v. Vance, 559 F.2d 1286 (CA5 1977) dealing with a nuisance injunction to close a theater after pornography conviction, reached a result contrary to For-syth. The court in Vance clearly recognized the “prior restraint” problem and the Vance decision raises doubts as to the future vital*436ity of Forsyth even within the Fifth Circuit (though granting by the Court en banc of rehearing in Vance leaves resolution of this matter within that circuit unsettled).
MAUGHAN, J., concurs in the views expressed in the dissenting opinion of WILKINS, J.

. Though several defendants are still technically parties, I shall refer to the defendant throughout singularly.

. People ex rel. Busch v. Projection Room Theater, 17 Cal.3d 42, 130 Cal.Rptr. 328, 550 P.2d 600 (1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 922, 97 S.Ct. 320, 50 L.Ed.2d 289 (1976); State ex rel. Ewing v. Without A Stitch, 37 Ohio St.2d 95, 307 N.E.2d 911 (1974); Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436, 77 S.Ct. 1325, 1 L.Ed.2d 1469 (1957); State ex rel. Cahalan v. Diversified Theatrical Corp., 396 Mich. 244, 240 N.W.2d 460 (1976); General Corp. v. State ex rel. Sweeton, 294 Ala. 657, 320 So.2d 668 (1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 904, 96 S.Ct. 1494, 47 L.Ed.2d 753 (1976); Mitchem v. State ex rel. Schaub, 250 So.2d 883 (Fla., 1971); Sanders v. State, 231 Ga. 608, 203 S.E.2d 153 (1974); State v. A Motion Picture Entitled “The Bet,” 219 Kan. 64, 547 P.2d 760 (1976); Gulf States Theatres of Louisiana, Inc. v. Richardson, 287 So.2d 480 (La., 1974); State ex rel. Field v. Hess, 540 P.2d 1165 (Okla., 1975); New Rivieria Arts Theatre v. State ex rel. Davis, 219 Tenn. 652, 412 S.W.2d 890 (1967); Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olsen, 283 U.S. 697, 51 S.Ct. 625, 75 L.Ed. 1357 (1931); Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 56 S.Ct. 444, 80 L.Ed. 660 (1936); Cantwell v. State of Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940).

. Alexander v. City of St. Paul, 303 Minn. 201, 227 N.W.2d 370 (1975); Hamar Theatres, Inc. v. City of Newark, 150 N.J.Super. 14, 374 A.2d 502 (1977); City of Delevan v. Thomas, 31 Ill.App.3d 630, 334 N.E.2d 190 (1975).