Amalgamated Food Employees Union, Local 590 v. Logan Valley Plaza, Inc./Dissent White

by Byron White

United States Supreme Court

391 U.S. 308

Amalgamated Food Employees Union, Local 590  v.  Logan Valley Plaza, Inc.

 Argued: March 14, 1968. --- Decided: May 20, 1968

Mr. Justice WHITE, dissenting.

The reason why labor unions may normally picket a place of business is that the picketing occurs on public streets which are available to all members of the public for a variety of purposes that include communication with other members of the public. The employer businessman cannot interfere with the pickets' communication because they have as much right to the sidewalk and street as he does and because the labor laws prevent such interference under various circumstances; the Government may not interfere on his behalf, absent obstruction, violence, or other valid statutory justification, because the First Amendment forbids official abridgment of the right of free speech.

In Marsh v. State of Alabama, 326 U.S. 501, 66 S.Ct. 276, 90 L.Ed. 265 (1946), the company town was found to have all of the attributes of a state-created municipality and the company was found effectively to be exercising official power as a delegate of the State. In the context of that case, the streets of the company town were as available and as dedicated to public purposes as the streets of an ordinary town. The company owner stood in the shoes of the State in attempting to prevent the streets from being used as public streets are normally used.

The situation here is starkly different. As Mr. Justice BLACK so clearly shows, Logan Valley Plaza is not a town but only a collection of stores. In no sense are any parts of the shopping center dedicated to the public for general purposes or the occupants of the Plaza exercising official powers. The public is invited to the premises but only in order to do business with those who maintain establishments there. The invitation is to shop for the products which are sold. There is no general invitation to use the parking lot, the pickup zone, or the sidewalk except as an adjunct to shopping. No one is invited to use the parking lot as a place to park his car while he goes elsewhere to work. The driveways and lanes for auto traffic are not offered for use as general thoroughfares leading from one public street to another. Those driveways and parking spaces are not public streets and thus available for parades, public meetings, or other activities for which public streets are used. It may be more convenient for cars and trucks to cut through the shopping center to get from one place to another, but surely the Court does not mean to say that the public may use the shopping center property for this purpose. Even if the Plaza has some aspects of 'public' property, it is nevertheless true that some public property is available for some uses and not for others; some public property is neither designed nor dedicated for use by pickets or for other communicative activities. E.g., Adderley v. State of Florida, 385 U.S. 39, 87 S.Ct. 242, 17 L.Ed.2d 149 (1966). The point is that whether Logan Valley Plaza is public or private property, it is a place for shopping and not a place for picketing.

The most that can be said is that here the public was invited to shop, that except for their location in the shopping center development the stores would have fronted on public streets and sidewalks, and that the shopping center occupied a large area. But on this premise the parking lot, sidewalks, and driveways would be available for all those activities which are usually permitted on public streets. It is said that Logan Valley Plaza is substantially equivalent to a business block and must be treated as though each store was bounded by a public street and a public sidewalk. This rationale, which would immunize nonobstructive labor union picketing, would also compel the shopping center to permit picketing on its property for other communicative purposes, whether the subject matter concerned a particular business establishment or not. Nonobstructive handbilling for religious purposes, political campaigning, protests against government policies-the Court would apparently place all of these activities carried out on Logan Valley's property within the protection of the First Amendment, although the activities may have no connection whatsoever with the views of the Plaza's occupants or with the conduct of their businesses.

Furthermore, my Brother BLACK is surely correct in saying that if the invitation to the public is sufficient to permit nonobstructive picketing on the sidewalks, in the pickup zone, or in the parking area, only actual interference with customers or employees should bar pickets from quietly entering the store and marching around with their message on front and back.

It is not clear how the Court might draw a line between 'shopping centers' and other business establishments which have sidewalks or parking on their own property. Any store invites the patronage of members of the public interested in its products. I am fearful that the Court's decision today will be a license for pickets to leave the public streets and carry out their activities on private property, as long as they are not obstructive. I do not agree that when the owner of private property invites the public to do business with him he impliedly dedicates his property for other uses as well. I do not think the First Amendment, which bars only official interferences with speech, has this reach. In Marsh, the company ran an entire town and the State was deemed to have devolved upon the company the task of carrying out municipal functions. But here the 'streets' of Logan Valley Plaza are not like public streets; they are not used as thoroughfares for general travel from point to point, for general parking, for meetings, or for Easter parades.

If it were shown that Congress has thought it necessary to permit picketing on private property, either to further the national labor policy under the Commerce Clause or to implement and enforce the First Amendment, we would have quite a different case. But that is not the basis on which the Court proceeds, and I therefore dissent.

Notes