French v. Amalgamated Local Union 376, UAW, 13059

• Decision Date: 02 June 1987
• Docket Number: No. 13059,13059
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: , 125 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2709, 56 USLW 2008 Gary FRENCH v. AMALGAMATED LOCAL UNION 376, UAW et al.

Page 861

526 A.2d 861

203 Conn. 624, 125 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2709,

56 USLW 2008

Gary FRENCH v. AMALGAMATED LOCAL UNION 376, UAW et al.

No. 13059.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued March 11, 1987.

Decided June 2, 1987.

Daniel E. Livingston, with whom was Ruth L. Pulda, Hartford, for appellants-appellees (defendants).

Peter A. Janus, with whom was Kenneth R. Plumb, Hartford, for appellee-appellant (plaintiff).

Martin Margulies and Shelley White, Hartford, filed a brief for the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union Foundation as amicus curiae.

Before PETERS, C.J., and HEALEY, SHEA, SANTANIELLO and CALLAHAN, JJ.

PETERS, Chief Justice.

The principal issue in this case is the constitutionality of General Statutes § 31-120, ¹ which bans all residential picketing except labor picketing conducted at a residence located at the situs of a labor dispute. The plaintiff, Gary W. French, the president of Colt Industries/Firearms Division, filed an application in the Superior Court for a temporary injunction to prohibit the defendants, Amalgamated Local Union 376, UAW and other affiliated labor organizations, from continuing to picket on the street in front of his residence in Vernon. Determining that the three labor demonstrations previously held by the defendants at the plaintiff's home were proscribed by § 31-120, and that the defendants would continue to hold such demonstrations unless enjoined from doing so, the trial court issued a temporary injunction that prohibits the defendants from any further picketing at the plaintiff's home. ² The defendants' appeal from that injunction has been transferred to this court. ³ We conclude that § 31-120 is a constitutionally impermissible regulation of speech that violates the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution, and that the trial court's order enjoining the defendants' picketing is therefore invalid.

The temporary injunction was based on the following facts. After working without a contract since March, 1985, the members of Amalgamated Local Union 376, UAW, in January, 1986, organized a strike at Colt Industries/Firearms Division. Subsequently, during the summer and early fall of 1986, the defendants held three peaceful demonstrations on the street outside the plaintiff's residence. The stated purpose of the demonstrations was to make the plaintiff aware of the personal hardship suffered by the families of the strikers and to encourage him to address the strikers' concerns.

The first demonstration occurred on July 1, 1986, at about 3:30 p.m., when approximately thirty adults and thirty-five children marched along the street in front of the French residence, chanting and carrying placards with messages related to the labor dispute. The second demonstration was held on August 27, 1986, at approximately 7:30 p.m. Between 200 and 250 adults marched in front of the French residence, singing and wearing buttons. On that occasion, however, the demonstrators did not carry placards. At the defendants' request, the Vernon Chief of Police, James Thomas, arranged to have two representatives of the defendants deliver a letter to the plaintiff during that demonstration. The third demonstration, which involved approximately the same number of people as the second, took place on September 9, 1986, at about 7:30 p.m. It was similar to the second demonstration, except that some demonstrators carried candles and no letter was delivered to the plaintiff. ⁴

Following the third demonstration, the plaintiff filed in the Superior Court a verified complaint and application for a temporary restraining order and/or temporary and permanent injunction. The complaint alleged, inter alia, that the defendants' actions on the above three occasions constituted unlawful conduct in direct violation of § 31-120. ⁵ After ordering the defendants to show cause why a temporary injunction should not be issued, the trial court held a hearing at which both parties appeared. Rejecting the defendants' claim that § 31-120 violated their rights to free speech and equal protection of the law under the state and federal constitutions, the court granted the plaintiff a temporary injunction. The court found that unless the defendants were temporarily enjoined from demonstrating at the plaintiff's residence, which the court deemed "unlawful" conduct in violation of § 31-120, the plaintiff would suffer "immediate substantial and irreparable injury."

In their appeal, ⁶ the defendants renew their claim that § 31-120 is unenforceable becauses it deprives them of their constitutional rights. Because we agree with their contention that, on its face, the statute violates their rights of free speech and equal protection of the law guaranteed to them by the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution, we find error. ⁷

I

Our analysis of the constitutionality of § 31-120 must begin with an examination of the language of the statute so that we may determine the scope of the conduct that it intends to regulate. Section 31-120 expressly bans all "picketing before or about the home or residence of any individual unless such home or residence is adjacent to or in the same building or on the same premises in which such person was employed and which employment is involved in a labor dispute." (Emphasis added.) Read literally, the statute prohibits all residential picketing except labor picketing conducted at a residence located at the situs of a labor dispute.

Residential picketing statutes such as § 31-120 restrict the fundamental right to freedom of speech and thus implicate both the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution. Indeed, peaceful picketing has generally been recognized as a constitutionally protected activity. Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 98, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 2291, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972); Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 155, 89 S.Ct. 935, 941, 22 L.Ed.2d 162 (1969); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 546, 85 S.Ct. 453, 13 L.Ed.2d 471 (1965); Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229, 235, 83 S.Ct. 680, 683, 9 L.Ed.2d 697 (1963); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 100-101, 60 S.Ct. 736, 743-44, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940). What has not always been entirely clear, however, is the extent to which picketing of private residences enjoys constitutional protection, because such picketing potentially infringes upon the individual's right to privacy in his home. See Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 471, 100 S.Ct. 2286, 2295-96, 65 L.Ed.2d 263 (1980); Gregory v. Chicago, 394 U.S. 111, 125, 89 S.Ct. 946, 953-54, 22 L.Ed.2d 134 (1969) (Black, J., concurring). The constitutional right to picket must be weighed against the interest of the state, acting under its police power, in promoting the well-being of the community and in preserving residential privacy. See Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U.S. 77, 83, 69 S.Ct. 448, 451-52, 93 L.Ed. 513 (1949); Euclid v. Ambler Co., 272 U.S. 365, 392, 47 S.Ct. 114, 120, 71 L.Ed. 303 (1926). Legislation restricting residential picketing therefore points up the inherent conflict between the individual's right to picket under the free speech and equal protection guarantees of our federal constitution, and the state's authority to maintain the sanctity of the home in order to protect individual privacy interests. This conflict has been resolved, by the United States Supreme Court, by subjecting restrictions on residential picketing to strict judicial scrutiny to insure that they are narrowly tailored to serve a substantial governmental interest and that they do not unduly impinge upon constitutionally protected speech. Carey v. Brown, supra, 447 U.S. at 463, 100 S.Ct. at 2291; Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, supra; see also Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U.S. 610, 106 S.Ct. 925, 928, 89 L.Ed.2d 29 (1986).

Federal and state precedents make it clear that the defendants in this case are entitled to raise constitutional concerns that transcend the particular circumstances of their case. In order to avoid the significant compromise of recognized first amendment protections of parties not before the court, litigants are allowed to challenge the validity of a law on first amendment grounds where the law would be invalid as applied to others, even if the law were to be deemed constitutional as applied to the litigant. Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 516, 84 S.Ct. 1659, 1669, 12 L.Ed.2d 992 (1964); NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 432-33, 83 S.Ct. 328, 337-38, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (1963); Thornhill v. Alabama, supra, 310 U.S at 97-98, 60 S.Ct. at 741-42; State v. Pickering, 180 Conn. 54, 57-58 n. 3, 428 A.2d 322 (1980). Accordingly, the plaintiff has raised no question about the defendants' standing to seek our review of the full panoply of constitutional questions that are implicated by the trial court's issuance of an injunction pursuant to § 31-120.

II

Under first amendment doctrine, any statute that impairs rights to free speech will be invalid unless it serves a substantial state interest and is narrowly drawn to achieve that end. Applying that standard to § 31-120 would, at a minimum, raise serious doubts about its constitutional viability. Independent consideration of this issue is, however, essentially foreclosed because § 31-120, on its face, is virtually identical to an Illinois statute declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Carey v. Brown, supra. ⁸

Much like § 31-120, the Illinois statute under attack in Carey v. Brown imposed a broad ban on residential picketing, declaring, in part, that "[i]t is unlawful to picket before or about the residence or dwelling of any person, except when the residence or dwelling is used as a place of business." Ill.Ann.Stat., c. 38 § 21.1-2 (1977). Significantly, the Illinois statute, again much like our own, provided an exception for, inter alia, "the peaceful picketing of a place of employment involved in a labor dispute."...