- [Narrator] The United States Supreme Court
in Amalgamated Food Employees Union Local 590
versus Logan Valley Plaza, Incorporated
evaluated whether shopping mall owners could prohibit
peaceful picketing on mall property.
Logan Valley Plaza, a suburban shopping mall
in Pennsylvania, opened in 1965.
The mall included Weis market, a grocery store
that employed non-union labor.
Shortly after Weis market opened,
union employees from Weis' competitors
began peacefully picketing the store.
The picketers congregated outside Weis market
in the parcel pickup area and the adjacent portion
of the mall-owned parking lot.
In response to Weis and Logan's petition,
the state court enjoined picketing on mall property.
The injunction relocated the picketers
to the berms, which were areas of raised land
between the shopping mall parking lot
and the public roads outside the mall.
On review the Pennsylvania Supreme Court
affirmed the injunction because the picketers
were trespassing on private property.
The United States Supreme Court granted cert
to determine whether a shopping mall owner
could employ state trespass laws to prohibit
peaceful picketing on mall property.
Justice Marshall writing for the six-justice majority
concluded that the injunction violated
the picketers' First Amendment rights.
The First Amendment protects peaceful picketing
in areas generally open to the public.
Under some circumstances private property
can be considered open to the public.
The court cited Marsh versus Alabama,
in which the court examined First Amendment rights
in the context of a company town.
A company town is a community where a commercial employer
owns the entire town, including residences,
utilities and retail stores.
In a company town, an area that included stores
and businesses was the equivalent of a town square
and thus open to expressive activity.
Here the court applied Marsh's rationale
to shopping malls.
Like the company town, the mall was surrounded
by public roads, sidewalks for pedestrian use,
and roadways within the parking lot.
The general public had unrestricted access
to mall property, which makes mall property
similar to a town square.
Thus the mall couldn't prohibit picketers
from exercising their First Amendment rights
on mall property.
By relocating the picketers to berms
far from the supermarket, the mall owners substantially
hindered the picketers' communication of their ideas.
Unlike a home owner, the mall had no claim
to privacy rights.
Further the picketers hadn't interfered
with normal business operations.
The mall's ownership of the premises without more
couldn't justify its prohibition
of the picketers' expressive activities.
Had Weis market been located in a traditional downtown,
it'd be no question that the First Amendment
protected peaceful protest on adjacent public sidewalks.
The court was concerned that suburban shopping malls
could create a cocoon of protest-free space
simply by building large parking lots
around their businesses.
The court added that the mall's owners
could still create reasonable rules governing
the exercise of First Amendment rights on their property.
But the court offered no guidance on the limits
of the mall's rule making authority.
Thus the United States Supreme Court reversed
the decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Justice Douglas concurred that the shopping mall
had opened its property to public use
and that the picketing was directly related
to shopping mall business.
Justice Black who authored the court's
Marsh decision dissented.
Unlike the company town, the shopping mall
owned no homes, sewage disposal plant, or post office.
Marsh concluded that private property
could be treated as publicly held
for First Amendment purposes only if it possessed
all the attributes of a town,
and thus enabled private property owners
to stand in the shoes of the state.
This was not the case for malls.
Justice Harlan also dissented arguing
that application of federal labor laws
could resolve the case
thus avoiding the constitutional question.
However the picketers hadn't preserved
that issue for appeal.
Harlan would have dismissed the writ
as unwisely granted.
In his dissent Justice White concluded that,
unlike public streets available to all
for a variety of purposes, the mall invited the public
only to do business with the shops located there.
In 1976, the court in Hudgens
versus National Labor Relations Board
recognized that its 1972 Lloyd Corporation
versus Tanner decision had effectively overruled
Amalgamated Food Employees Union Local 590
versus Logan Valley Plaza, Inc.
In denying students First Amendment right
to distribute anti-war pamphlets at a shopping mall,
the Lloyd court largely adopted the reasoning
of Justice Black's dissent in Logan.
As a result, private property is treated
as publicly held for First Amendment purposes
only if it has all the attributes
of a municipality and enables its owners
to stand in the state's shoes.