Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins

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1980 United States Supreme Court case

Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision issued on June 9, 1980 which affirmed the decision of the California Supreme Court in a case that arose out of a free speech dispute between the Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell , California , and several local high school students (who wished to canvass signatures for a petition against United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 ).

Case

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The underlying dispute began in November 1975, when a group of high school students set up a table at the Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell , California to seek signatures from passersby for a petition they wished to send to the United Nations (UN) following the UN's condemnation of Zionism as "a form of racism and racial discrimination". The shopping center's security guards asked them to leave because they had not obtained permission from the shopping center's owners. The students sued the shopping center for violating their rights under the First Amendment , as well as their right to "petition government for redress of grievances" under the California state constitution . The Santa Clara County Superior Court ruled against the students on the basis of _Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner _ 407 U.S. 551 (1972), in which the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to find a First Amendment right of freedom of speech on others' private property.

The Supreme Court of California reversed the superior court and ruled in favor of the students. The state supreme court held that the state constitution's rights to freedom of speech and to petition for redress of grievances operate independently of and were unaffected by the interpretation of the federal First Amendment in Lloyd. The shopping center's owner petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously upheld the decision of the California Supreme Court.

In American constitutional law , this case established two important rules:

• under the California Constitution , individuals may peacefully exercise their right to free speech in parts of private shopping centers regularly held open to the public, subject to reasonable regulations adopted by the shopping centers
• under the U.S. Constitution , states can provide their citizens with broader rights in their constitutions than under the federal Constitution, so long as those rights do not infringe on any federal constitutional rights

This holding was possible because California's constitution contains an affirmative right of free speech which has been liberally construed by the Supreme Court of California, while the federal constitution's First Amendment contains only a negative command to Congress to not abridge the freedom of speech. This distinction was significant because the U.S. Supreme Court had already held that under the federal First Amendment, there was no implied right of free speech within a private shopping center. The Pruneyard case, therefore, raised the question of whether an implied right of free speech could arise under a state constitution without conflicting with the federal Constitution. In answering yes to that question, the Court rejected the shopping center's argument that California's broader free speech right amounted to a "taking" of the shopping center under federal constitutional law.

Footnote two of the decision quotes the relevant portions of the California Constitution , which states in Article 1, § 2

Every person may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of this right. A law may not restrain or abridge liberty of speech or press.

and Article 1, § 3

[P]eople have the right to ... petition government for redress of grievances.

The vote to uphold the California decision was unanimous, although four justices disagreed with part of the reasoning in Justice William Rehnquist 's opinion for the majority. Justices Thurgood Marshall , Byron White , and Lewis Powell filed separate concurring opinions. Justice Harry Blackmun filed a brief "statement" indicating that he was joining in all of Justice Rehnquist's opinion except for one sentence.

Subsequent developments

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Although 39 other states have free speech clauses in their constitutions that look like California's – indeed, California borrowed its clause from a similar one in the New York Constitution – at least 13 of those states have declined to follow California in extending the right of free speech into private shopping centers. In refusing to follow Pruneyard, the state supreme courts of New York and Wisconsin both attacked it as an unprincipled and whimsical decision. In 2003, the European Court of Human Rights also considered and refused to follow Pruneyard, in a United Kingdom case. Only New Jersey , Colorado , and Massachusetts have followed California, albeit with some reservations. In a 2000 decision, Puerto Rico (a U.S. territory) also adopted Pruneyard's right of free speech, although the case was complicated by the presence of a branch office of a government agency (Puerto Rico Telephone , since privatized) in the shopping center (the Mayagüez Mall ). Some commentators have suggested the Pruneyard rule could be applied to speech on the Internet, including speech activities in virtual worlds , like Linden Lab's Second Life , although the courts have not addressed this theory.

In the decades since Pruneyard was decided, the Supreme Court of California has become much more conservative , especially after three liberal justices (including Chief Justice Rose Bird ) were removed by the electorate in 1986 after a campaign that focused upon their opposition to the death penalty .

In the 2001 Golden Gateway decision, a 4–3 majority of the Court significantly narrowed Pruneyard by holding for a variety of reasons that California's free speech right does not apply to private apartment complexes – yet they also refused to overrule Pruneyard. Thus, California's right of free speech in private shopping centers still survives.

The shopping center industry strongly opposes the _Pruneyard

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