Planned Parenthood Shasta-Diablo, Inc. v. Williams

• Decision Date: 31 July 1995
• Docket Number: No. S031721,INC,SHASTA-DIABL,S031721
• Citation: 898 P.2d 402,43 Cal.Rptr.2d 88,10 Cal.4th 1009
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 898 P.2d 402, 95 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 6022, 95 Daily Journal D.A.R. 10,239 PLANNED PARENTHOOD, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Christine WILLIAMS, et al., Defendants and Appellants

Page 88

43 Cal.Rptr.2d 88

10 Cal.4th 1009, 898 P.2d 402, 95 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 6022,

95 Daily Journal D.A.R. 10,239

PLANNED PARENTHOOD SHASTA-DIABLO, INC., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Christine WILLIAMS, et al., Defendants and Appellants.

No. S031721.

Supreme Court of California,

July 31, 1995.

In Bank.

[10 Cal.4th 1011] [898 P.2d 403] John R. Streett, Novato, for defendants and appellants.

James Joseph Lynch, Jr., Walnut Creek, Jay Alan Sekulow, Atlanta, GA, Walter M. Weber, Washington, DC, Thomas P. Monaghan, New Hope, KY, Christopher R. Inama, San Carlos, and Craig Peter T.S. Cornell, Rolling Hills, as amici curiae, on behalf of defendants and appellants.

McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, Maria P. Rivera, Geoffrey L. Robinson, Grant Guerra and Stephen Kostka, Walnut Creek, for plaintiff and respondent.

Catherine I. Hanson, Alice P. Mead, Celeste Lacy Davis, San Francisco, Morrison & Foerster, James J. Garrett, Gregory P. Dresser, Walnut Creek, Elizabeth Bader, Jill Schlictmann, Melanie Wyne and Elizabeth Dahl, San Francisco, as amici curiae, on behalf of plaintiff and respondent.

ARABIAN, Justice.

In Planned Parenthood Shasta-Diablo, Inc. v. Williams (1994) 7 Cal.4th 860, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224 (Planned Parenthood I ), this court upheld an injunction limiting the protest activities of petitioners, anti-abortion activists, to the sidewalk across the street from a women's health clinic operated by Planned Parenthood, Shasta-Diablo, Inc. Planned Parenthood). Thereafter, the United States Supreme Court announced its decision in Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc. (1994) 512 U.S. 753, 114 S.Ct. 2516, 129 L.Ed.2d 593 (Madsen ), which upheld, under a slightly stricter Petitioners herein petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated our earlier judgment, and remanded the cause to this court "for further consideration in light of" Madsen. ((1994) 513 U.S. 956, 115 S.Ct. 413, 130 L.Ed.2d 329.) We requested and received supplemental briefing from the parties addressed to this topic. Having now reconsidered the matter, we are persuaded that the injunction we upheld in Planned Parenthood I, supra, 7 Cal.4th 860, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224, is equally valid under the new standard set forth in Madsen. We therefore reaffirm the judgment in favor of Planned Parenthood.

constitutional[898 P.2d 404] standard than we applied in Planned Parenthood I, an injunction creating a buffer zone of 36 feet around a women's health clinic, thereby effectively restricting the anti-abortion protesters in that case to the other side of the street from the clinic. (512 U.S. at pp. ---- - ----, 114 S.Ct. at pp. 2526-2527.)

I.

The facts are set forth in full in Planned Parenthood I, supra, 7 Cal.4th 860, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224, and will be repeated here only insofar as they are relevant to the remand.

Planned Parenthood operates a family planning clinic in Vallejo. The clinic provides a range of family planning and health services, including abortions. The clinic is located in a one-story building. The entrance to the clinic is on the side of the building adjacent to a parking lot. There is a concrete yard for additional parking immediately in the front of the building, and a narrow public sidewalk between the yard and the street. The sidewalk is punctuated by two driveways into the parking lot. (Planned Parenthood I, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 865, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224.)

Beginning in March 1990, petitioners began gathering at the clinic, primarily on Thursdays when abortions were performed, to picket and demonstrate against abortions. Although their numbers varied, there were usually six to eight demonstrators at any given time, and occasionally as many as one hundred. Petitioners picketed on the public sidewalk in front of the clinic as well as in the parking lot. One of the tactics of the sidewalk picketers was to walk slowly across the driveway entrance, thereby delaying cars attempting to turn into the parking lot from the street. Demonstrators would then approach the car and attempt to pass literature through the windows. Other protesters pursued patients walking from their cars to the clinic entrance, as well as along the sidewalk and across the street to the bus stop, offering "sidewalk counseling." Such "counseling" consisted of pressing anti-abortion literature and plastic replicas of fetuses on patients attempting to enter the clinic and exhorting them to reconsider their decision to have an abortion. Petitioners also stationed several sidewalk "counselors" directly outside the clinic entrance for the same purpose. (Planned Parenthood I, supra, 7 Cal.4th at pp. 865-866, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224.) A witness for petitioners testified that picketing on the sidewalk in front of the clinic was impractical because the sidewalk crossed both driveways; thus, even a few picketers "would impede traffic on Broadway, being a busy street, [and] would probably cause traffic accidents."

In response to Planned Parenthood's complaint for injunctive relief, the trial court initially issued in August 1990 a temporary restraining order enjoining petitioners from harassing any person entering or leaving the building and limiting their picketing to the sidewalk in front of the building. Following a hearing in September, the court granted a preliminary injunction limiting to four the number of pickets that petitioners could maintain on the sidewalk and restricting their proximity to one another. Trial on the complaint for a permanent injunction was held in April 1992. Testimony was received from Janice Schoenfeld, the escort coordinator for the clinic, who stated that the demonstrators had generally complied with the preliminary injunction "except for picketers." Marsha Anderson, the clinic director, testified that she had been forced to call the police to enforce the preliminary injunction, " 'to hand it out to people who were on the sidewalk and were about to break the Following trial, the court made findings that petitioners had (1) confronted and intimidated women seeking the clinic's services and forced plastic replicas of fetuses and "counseling" upon the clinic's patients and staff; (2) interfered with or obstructed entrance to and exit from the clinic; (3) pursued patients to their cars and public transportation to distribute literature and plastic fetuses; and (4) caused some of the women seeking medical services to become emotionally distraught. Based on these findings, the trial court granted a permanent injunction against petitioners. Among other provisions, the injunction restricted their picketing, demonstrating and counseling activities to the public sidewalk across the street from the clinic. (Planned Parenthood I, supra, 7 Cal.4th at pp. 866-867, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224.)

                [898 P.2d 405] rules,' " or breaking the rules.  (Planned Parenthood I, supra, 7 Cal.4th at pp. 866-867, fn. 2, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224.)   The clinic was compelled to employ "escorts" to help patients enter and leave the clinic without being physically accosted by demonstrators
                

Although the Court of Appeal invalidated certain other provisions of the injunction, it sustained the place restriction, concluding that it served a substantial governmental interest in safeguarding a woman's fundamental right to procreative choice under article I, section 1, of the California Constitution, and was narrowly tailored to serve that end. (Planned Parenthood I, supra, 7 Cal.4th at pp. 867-868, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224.)

We granted review and affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal, but on slightly different grounds. We applied what was then the settled four-part test to determine the constitutional validity of a time, place, and manner restriction limiting such speech activities as picketing and leafleting in a public forum. (See Ward v. Rock Against Racism (1989) 491 U.S. 781, 791, 109 S.Ct. 2746, 2753-54, 105 L.Ed.2d 661; Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984) 468 U.S. 288, 293, 104 S.Ct. 3065, 3069, 82 L.Ed.2d 221.) Under that standard, the first issue to be determined is whether the restriction is content neutral, that is, whether it regulates "without reference to the content of the regulated speech." (Va. Pharmacy Bd. v. Va. Citizens Consumer Council (1976) 425 U.S. 748, 771, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 1830, 48 L.Ed.2d 346.) We concluded that the place restriction was content neutral, observing that it made no reference to petitioners' viewpoint, but focused exclusively on the location and manner of their protest activities. (Planned Parenthood I, supra, 7 Cal.4th at pp. 869-871, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224.) Petitioners' contention that the injunction was content based because it was impelled by, and directed exclusively against, their anti-abortion activities was similarly rejected. As we explained, the injunction was properly confined to petitioners as "they were the only ones found to have harassed clinic patients and staff." (Id. at p. 870, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224.) It was not their point of view, but their harassing and confrontational conduct that impelled the restriction. "Indeed, a similar injunction might just as readily apply to pro-choice demonstrators or to any other disruptive protest in close ... proximity to the clinic." (Id. at p. 871, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224.)

We next considered whether the restriction served a significant governmental interest, and concluded that the buffer zone was amply justified by the significant state interest in preserving the health and safety of patients entering and leaving a medical facility for purposes of receiving treatment, including clinical abortions. As we observed, "the government 'may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health ' and 'in maintaining medical standards' in the performance of abortions. [...