It is open to the public for the purpose of encouraging the patronizing of its commercial establishments.
It has a policy not to permit any visitor to engage in any publicly expressive activity, including the circulation of petitions.
Appellees are high school students who sought to solicit support for their opposition to a UN resolution against Zionism. Their activity was peaceful and orderly and was not objected to by PY patrons.
A security guard stopped the and they filed suit.
Procedural History
Lower Court held for PY, students not entitled to exercise their rights on the shopping center property.
COA affirmed.
CA Supreme Ct reversed, held for high school students, holding that the CA Constitution protects "speech and petitioning" even when the centers are privately owned. This is not an infringement on US Constitutional property and free speech rights.
Issues
Do state constitutional provisions that permit individuals to exercise free speech and petition rights on the property of a privately owned shopping center violate the owner's property rights under the fifth amendment or the free speech rights under the first amendment?
Holding/Rule
State constitutional provisions that permit individuals to exercise free speech and petition rights on the property of a privately-owned shopping center do not violate the owner's property rights.
Reasoning
PY contend that Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner prevents the State from requiring a private shopping center owner to provide access to persons exercising their state constitutional rights when adequate alternative avenues are available.
This case dealt with whether a shopping center could prohibit handbill distribution on its property.
SCOTUS said it could, because "property does not lose its private character merely because the public is generally invited to use it for designated purposes."
However, our reasoning here does not automatically limit the authority of the State to exercise its police power to adopt in its own Constitution individual liberties more expansive than those conferred by the Federal Constitution.
A state can adopt reasonable restrictions on private property so long as the restrictions do not amount to a taking without just compensation or contravene any other constitutional provision.
PY also contends that a right to exclude others underlies the 5th Amendment guarantee against taking of property without compensation as well as due process.
One of the essential sticks in the bundle of property rights is the right to exclude others.
Here there has been a taking of that right to the extent that the CA S. Ct. has interpreted the CA constitution to entitle citizens to free expression on shopping center property.
However, not every destruction or injury to property has been held to be a taking in the constitutional sense.
Here, the determination of whether a state has violated the takings clause requires an examination of whether the restrictions on private property force some people to bear public burdens that should be borne by the public as a whole.
Here, the requirement that PY permit the students to exercise free expression rights on shopping center property clearly is not an unconstitutional infringement under the takings clause.
Preventing PY from prohibiting this sort of activity will not unreasonably impair the value or use of their property as a shopping center.
PY can restrict expressive activity by limiting time and place and manner of expression.
PY has failed to demonstrate that the right to exclude others is so essential to the use or economic value of the property that the state-authorized limitation amounts to a "taking."
PY's final contention is that a property owner has a 1st amendment right not to be forced by the state to use his property as a forum for the speech of others.
They argue that in Wooley v. Maynard, the Court concluded that a state may not require an individual to participate in the dissemination of an ideological message by displaying it on his private property.
This case, however, was one in which the government itself prescribed the message and required it to be displayed.
Here, however, the shopping center is not limited to the personal use of PY, but is open for the public. In addition, the state is not prescribing the message that is to be displayed.
