This might help our side the next time we risk the
"private property" thing during our next several
protests...
<snip>
The next time you go on one of these little sojourns take a copy of this with you. If you wish to see just how often Pruneyard has been used, go to the address for 89-present and search on Pruneyard.
Essentially, Pruneyard ruled that anyone who wishes to participate in political free speech, on common property that is usually and customarily open to the general public, may do so unhampered. Those who do hamper a person from doing so are in violation of that person's Constitutional and civil rights and may be held accountable monetarily and by incarceration.
The trial court and appeals court ruled against the appelees but the CA Supreme Court reversed and the US Supreme Court upheld the reversal. Vis-a-vis, you can sue 'em.
This would include the lobby of a hotel but not the guest halls or corridors, etc. You get the point.
I have included a short synopsis of Pruneyard from Findlaw.
Supreme Court Decisions 1937 through 1975
http://www.fedworld.gov/supcourt/index.htm
Supreme Court Decisions 1989-Present http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/
PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980) (coerced creation of a speaker's forum on private property)
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=447&invol=74
U.S. Supreme Court
PRUNEYARD SHOPPING CENTER v. ROBINS, 447 U.S. 74 (1980)
447 U.S. 74
PRUNEYARD SHOPPING CENTER ET AL. v. ROBINS ET AL.
APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA.
No. 79-289.
Argued March 18, 1980.
Decided June 9, 1980.
Soon after appellees had begun soliciting in appellant privately owned shopping center's central courtyard for signatures from passersby for petitions in opposition to a United Nations resolution, a security guard informed appellees that they would have to leave because their activity violated shopping center regulations prohibiting any visitor or tenant from engaging in any publicly expressive activity that is not directly related to the center's commercial purposes. Appellees immediately left the premises and later filed suit in a California state court to enjoin the shopping center and its owner (also an appellant) from denying appellees access to the center for the purpose of circulating their petitions. The trial court held that appellees were not entitled under either the Federal or California Constitution to exercise their asserted rights on the shopping center property, and the California Court of Appeal affirmed. The California Supreme Court reversed, holding that the California Constitution protects speech and petitioning, reasonably exercised, in shopping centers even when the center is privately owned, and that such result does not infringe appellants' property rights protected by the Federal Constitution.