Carreras v. City of Anaheim

• Decision Date: 13 August 1985
• Docket Number: 84-5620,Nos. 83-6542,s. 83-6542
• Citation: 768 F.2d 1039
• Parties: Jack CARRERAS, Alvin Marsden, and the International Society For Krishna Consciousness of Laguna Beach, Inc., Plaintiffs-Appellants/Cross Appellees. v. CITY OF ANAHEIM, Defendant-Appellee/Cross Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1039

768 F.2d 1039

Jack CARRERAS, Alvin Marsden, and the International Society For Krishna Consciousness of Laguna Beach, Inc. Plaintiffs-Appellants/Cross Appellees. v. CITY OF ANAHEIM, Defendant-Appellee/Cross Appellant.

Nos. 83-6542, 84-5620.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Sept. 7, 1984.

Decided Aug. 13, 1985.

Larry J. Roberts (argued), David Grosz, Barry A. Fisher, Fisher & Moest, Los Angeles, Cal., David M. Liberman, Culver City, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants/cross appellees.

Charles H. Redd, Anaheim, Cal., for defendant-appellee/cross appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

Before TUTTLE ^*, Senior Circuit Judge, and NORRIS and BEEZER, Circuit Judges.

NORRIS, Circuit Judge:

The district court in this case decided that the City of Anaheim may constitutionally prohibit members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness of Laguna Beach, Inc. (ISKCON) from soliciting donations in the parking areas and pedestrian walkways outside Anaheim Stadium, but could not prohibit ISKCON from soliciting donations on the exterior walkways of the Anaheim Convention Center. Both facilities are owned by the City of Anaheim. The district court rejected ISKCON's constitutional challenges to an Anaheim ordinance regulating solicitation in the city. Finally, the district court ruled that ISKCON was not a prevailing party entitled to attorney's fees under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988 (1982).

We affirm the district court's decision that Anaheim may not constitutionally prohibit ISKCON from soliciting donations on the walkways outside the convention center. We reverse the district court's decisions that the ordinance is constitutional on its face and that the city may prohibit ISKCON from soliciting outside the stadium. Finally, we hold that ISKCON is entitled to attorney's fees under Sec. 1988.

I. Factual Background and Procedural History

Plaintiffs in this case are ISKCON and two of its officers, Jack Carreras and Alvin Marsden. The defendant is the City of Anaheim (Anaheim). Members of ISKCON perform sankirtan, a proselytizing activity that involves the distribution of religious literature and the solicitation of donations in public places. The Anaheim ordinance at issue required persons soliciting within city limits to obtain a permit. In 1982, city officials denied ISKCON a permit to solicit donations in Anaheim. Pursuant to an informal agreement, ISKCON was permitted to perform sankirtan under restricted conditions at the convention center but was totally prohibited from any solicitation at the stadium. In March, 1983, ISKCON brought this civil rights action in federal district court seeking a declaration establishing its right to solicit in the exterior areas of Anaheim Stadium and the Anaheim Convention Center and a declaration that the Anaheim ordinance regulating solicitation was unconstitutional, both on its face and as applied. ISKCON also sought injunctive relief. ¹

After a bench trial, the district court denied ISKCON relief except with respect to the convention center. ISKCON appeals the judgment to the extent it declares the ordinance to be constitutional, denies relief with respect to the stadium, and denies ISKCON attorney's fees. Anaheim cross-appeals the judgment to the extent it permits ISKCON to solicit at the convention center.

Thus, the appeal and cross-appeal require us to answer two principal questions. First, may the City of Anaheim forbid ISKCON from soliciting donations on the sidewalks and parking lots outside Anaheim Stadium and on the walkways outside Anaheim Convention Center? Second, was the Anaheim ordinance governing solicitation unconstitutional, either on its face or as applied? ²

II. The Role of State Law

We preface our analysis of the constitutional questions with a discussion of the role of state law in our decision. ISKCON challenges its exclusion from the stadium and convention center and the solicitation ordinance on the basis of both the United States Constitution and the California Constitution. If the California Constitution provides "independent support" for ISKCON's claims, then "there is no need for decision of the federal issue." City of Mesquite v. Aladdin's Castle, Inc., 455 U.S. 283, 294-95, 102 S.Ct. 1070, 1077, 71 L.Ed.2d 152 (1982); ³ see also Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 345-48, 56 S.Ct. 466, 482-83, 80 L.Ed. 688 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring). The doctrine that federal constitutional issues should be avoided if a case can be decided on state law grounds, see Siler v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co., 213 U.S. 175, 193, 29 S.Ct. 451, 455, 53 L.Ed. 753 (1909), ⁴ is a corollary of the general principle that federal courts should avoid the adjudication of federal constitutional issues when alternative grounds are available, see Jean v. Nelson, --- U.S. ----, ----, 105 S.Ct. 2992, 2997, 86 L.Ed.2d 664 (1985). The Supreme Court has indicated that federal constitutional issues should be avoided even when the alternative ground is one of state constitutional law. See Askew v. Hargrave, 401 U.S. 476, 478, 91 S.Ct. 856, 857, 28 L.Ed.2d 196 (1971); Reetz v. Bozanich, 397 U.S. 82, 85, 90 S.Ct. 788, 789, 25 L.Ed.2d 68 (1970). ⁵ The Sixth Circuit recently applied this doctrine of preference for state law grounds in a case analogous to the one before us,

[There is a] long-stated preference in the federal courts for avoiding federal constitutional adjudication when valid state law grounds for decision are available....

The state law claim upon which this litigation has now been terminated clearly involved "a common nucleus of operative fact" with Plaintiffs' federal constitutional claims, which we have previously described as "substantial".... Hence, the state law claim was properly subject to the jurisdiction of the federal court. Under these circumstances, the District Judge's holding on the Fourteenth Amendment issue was unnecessary.

Seals v. Quarterly County Court, 562 F.2d 390, 392 (6th Cir.1977) (citations omitted). Accordingly, we will first decide whether ISKCON's claims are sustainable on the basis of the California Constitution. If they are, we need not decide whether the City of Anaheim also violated the federal constitution.

III. The Public Forum Issues

We begin our analysis of the question whether Anaheim may prohibit solicitation at Anaheim Stadium or the Anaheim Convention Center with the "public forum" doctrine. ⁶ Because "of their vital role for people who lack access to more elaborate (and more costly) channels of communication," L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law Sec. 12-21, at 689 (1978), certain public places have special status under the First Amendment and California's Liberty of Speech Clause. The doctrine of the public forum achieves a central purpose of the freedom of speech--the goal of equality of communicative opportunity--by opening avenues of expression for the "poorly financed causes of little people." Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U.S. 141, 146, 63 S.Ct. 862, 865, 87 L.Ed. 1313 (1943). As our court has articulated the theme of the public forum cases, regulation of

free expression in the public areas ... affects most frequently those who advocate unpopular causes. It is those who seek to change the status quo who have historically taken to the streets or other public places to promote their causes. Those who are satisfied with our society as it is, normally use other forums.

Rosen v. Port of Portland, 641 F.2d 1243, 1251 (9th Cir.1981).

A. Public Forum Doctrine under California Law

The California Constitution provides, "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." Cal.Const art. 1, Sec. 2(a). ⁷ The test for whether a given municipal facility constitutes a "public forum" for the purposes of the California Liberty of Speech Clause was articulated by Chief Justice Traynor of the California Supreme Court in In re Hoffman, 67 Cal.2d 845, 434 P.2d 353, 64 Cal.Rptr. 97 (1967), a case involving a railway terminal where Vietnam War protestors distributed literature and discussed the war with persons using the terminal:

The primary uses of municipal property can amply be protected by ordinances that prohibit activities that interfere with those uses.... First Amendment activities [cannot] be prohibited solely because the property involved is not maintained primarily as a forum for such activities.

....

[I]n the present case, the test is not whether petitioners' use of the station was a railway use but whether it interfered with that use.

Id. at 850-51, 434 P.2d at 356, 64 Cal.Rptr. at 100. ⁸

More recently in Prisoners Union v. California Department of Corrections, 135 Cal.App.3d 930, 185 Cal.Rptr. 634 (Cal.Ct.App.1982), the California Court of Appeal formulated the test as follows:

[The term Public Forum is] constitutional shorthand for the proposition that ... government cannot regulate speech-related conduct in such places except in narrow ways shown to be necessary to serve significant governmental interests ... even if the regulation challenged as invalid leaves would-be speakers or paraders with ample alternatives for communicating their views.

135 Cal.App.3d at 935, 185 Cal.Rptr. at 636 (quoting L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law Sec. 12-21, at 689). ⁹

Indeed, Prisoners Union involved a fact situation analogous to the case before us. In Prisoners Union, the plaintiff was an organization devoted to the rights and welfare of prisoners and their families. The organization sought access to the visitors' parking lot of the California correctional facility at Soledad. The California Court of Appeal stated:

The question is not merely whether the parking lot is or is not a "public forum". Rather,...