Woodland v. Michigan Citizens Lobby
| Decision Date | 13 November 1985 |
| Docket Number | 72332 and 72333,Docket Nos. 72625 |
| Citation | 378 N.W.2d 337,423 Mich. 188 |
| Parties | , 54 USLW 2284 WOODLAND, a Michigan copartnership, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MICHIGAN CITIZENS LOBBY, a nonprofit Michigan corporation, Defendant-Appellant. The EQUITABLE LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY OF the UNITED STATES, et al., Plaintiffs- Appellants, v. MICHIGAN CITIZENS LOBBY, et al., Defendants-Appellees. The EQUITABLE LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY OF the UNITED STATES, et al., Plaintiffs- Appellants, v. FLINT TOWNSHIP POLICE DEPARTMENT, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Miro, Miro & Weiner, Jospeh Aviv, Bloomfield Hills, for plaintiff-appellee, Woodland.
Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone, Gregory L. Curtner, Gerald E. Rosen, Detroit, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Peter Linzer, University of Houston Law Center, Houston, Tex., American Civil Liberties Union Fund of Michigan Cooperating Atty., American Civil Liberties Union, Detroit, for defendants-appellants Michigan Citizens Lobby and Joseph S. Tuchnisky.
Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Louis J. Caruso, Sol. Gen., Michael J. Moquin, Asst. Atty. Gen., Appellate Div., Lansing, for amicus curiae Atty. Gen.
Sachs, Nunn, Kates, Kadushin, O'Hare, Helveston & Waldman, P.C., Theodore Sachs, Mary Ellen Gurewitz, Mark Brewer, Detroit, for amici, Local 876, UFCW Intern. Union, AFL-CIO, CLC, and Michigan State AFL-CIO.
In each of these cases the Michigan Citizens Lobby sought to engage in the solicitation of signatures for an initiative petition in the mall areas of privately owned shopping centers, over the objection of their owners, claiming that the denial or restriction of this activity is violative of the Michigan Constitution.
The issue presented is whether the Michigan Constitution's Declaration of Rights provisions which guarantee the rights of free expression, assembly and petition, art. Woodland v Michigan Citizens Lobby
1, Secs. 3, 5, and the powers of initiative with respect to legislation, art. 2, Sec. 9, and to amend the constitution, art. 12, Sec. 2, prohibit the owners of large private malls from denying or restricting access to private individuals seeking to exercise these rights. We hold that they do not.
Woodland, a Michigan copartnership, is the owner and operator of Woodland Mall, a retail shopping center located in Kentwood, near Grand Rapids in Paris Township, Michigan. Woodland Mall consists of a wholly enclosed mall, three department stores, and a surrounding parking area. The enclosed mall of the shopping center is comprised of approximately eighty stores leased to individual tenants as well as common areas through which shoppers travel from store to store. The common areas are designed and maintained to facilitate travel within the mall and to accommodate shoppers by providing numerous seating facilities, art works, and fountains. Woodland Mall maintains a strict written trespass policy prohibiting any activity in the shopping center that is not directly related to the enhancement of commercial retail sales, which the tenants and merchants rely upon and expect Woodland to enforce, 1 including soliciting, petitioning, securing signatures, speech making, distributing handbills, and similar activity.
The Michigan Citizens Lobby is a nonprofit Michigan corporation which advocates consumer interests. In March of 1982, the Citizens Lobby was seeking to qualify a petition to initiate state legislation and to qualify the proposal for the November 1982 ballot. 2
On April 1, 1982, the director of the Citizens Lobby notified the management of Woodland Mall that members of the Michigan Citizens Lobby would gather signatures at the mall on April 3, 1982. 3 The mall informed him of its policy against such activity, but, on April 3, the director and other members of the Citizens Lobby entered the Woodland Mall to solicit signatures for the initiative petition. They were met at the entrance by a security guard who told them that they were not permitted to enter the shopping center for soliciting purposes. They were also met by the center manager who denied them access to the mall for their intended activities. Nevertheless, the Citizens Lobby entered the mall and set up three card tables, and signs announcing their presence and purpose, in the center of the mall, and began soliciting signatures. The mall manager informed them that they were on private property and asked them to leave. They refused to leave, and members of the Citizens Lobby continued soliciting signatures until 6:00 p.m. and announced that they would return on April 9 and 10 and thereafter for the same purpose.
On April 6, 1982, Woodland filed a verified complaint against the Michigan Citizens Lobby in the Kent Circuit Court, seeking a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, and a permanent injunction, to prevent the Michigan Citizens Lobby from soliciting shoppers, gathering signatures, or otherwise entering and remaining on the Woodland Mall premises in violation of mall policy. The trial judge issued an ex parte restraining order on that same day. Following a hearing at which oral arguments were heard, the trial judge, on April 15, 1982, issued a preliminary injunction against the Michigan Citizens Lobby which was made permanent, by stipulation "[T]he defendant, Michigan Citizans [sic ] Lobby, [is] permanently enjoined from any time soliciting shoppers, gathering signatures, distributing handbills or other literature, securing signatures on petitions, making speeches, and engaging in any other expressive activity on any of the property owned by the plaintiff, Woodland, a Michigan co-partnership, including the common areas, courtyards, and corridors of Woodland Mall, a retail shopping center located in the Township of Paris, County of Kent, and State of Michigan."
and agreement of the parties, on April 27, 1982. In relevant part, the order and final judgment read:
The Michigan Citizens Lobby appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's order. 128 Mich.App. 649, 341 N.W.2d 174 (1983).
Equitable Life is the owner of the Genesee Valley Center located in Flint Township, Michigan. 4 The Genesee Valley Center is an enclosed mall consisting of three department stores and approximately ninety-two smaller stores. Like Woodland Mall, the Genesee Valley Center has common areas which are designed to facilitate travel within the complex as well as to promote rest and relaxation. The area is kept aesthetically pleasing to encourage such activity. Equitable Life maintains a strict policy regulating and restricting noncommercial activity on its premises. 5
On February 17, 1982, the Michigan Citizens Lobby contacted the Genesee Valley Center and informed the personnel there that it desired to come into the center to solicit signatures for a petition initiating legislation. The Citizens Lobby was told that the center had a written policy concerning the regulation of noncommercial and political activities and that the organization would be permitted to circulate its petitions in accordance with that policy. The Citizens Lobby was given a date in March 1982 on which it could engage in petitioning activity at the Genesee Valley Center.
The following day, February 18, 1982, the Michigan Citizens Lobby informed the center that their regulations violated Michigan law and that the Citizens Lobby would not comply with them. Later the center learned that the Citizens Lobby intended to circulate petitions in the mall on February On February 20, 1982, the Citizens Lobby conducted its initiative activity on the center premises. The Citizens Lobby informed the center that they intended to return to the center on each successive Saturday and perhaps more often until their petitioning campaign was completed and that they did not intend to comply with the center's written policy. Subsequently, the Citizens Lobby informed Equitable Life that it intended to pursue solicitation activities at Equitable Life's other Michigan shopping centers, 7 and intended not to comply with the written policy at those centers either.
20, 1982, and that local authorities would not intercede. 6 The center contacted the Citizens Lobby and agreed to permit them to gather signatures on February 20, 1982, on a one-time-only basis, subject to less severe restrictions than those ordinarily imposed under the center's policy.
On February 24, 1982, Equitable Life Assurance Society, and others, filed a verified complaint in the Genesee Circuit Court, seeking a declaratory judgment and preliminary and permanent injunctions, to prevent the Michigan Citizens Lobby and others from entering onto Equitable Life's properties for the purpose of engaging in noncommercial activity of any nature or, in the alternative, to declare that Equitable Life's policy permitting limited noncommercial activity constituted reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions with which the Michigan Citizens Lobby must comply. On the same date, Equitable Life also filed a motion for an ex parte temporary restraining order enjoining any noncommercial activities by the Michigan Citizens Lobby on Equitable Life's properties. 8 The trial judge did not grant the motion, but instead scheduled a hearing for February 26, 1982 on the propriety of issuing a temporary restraining order. Following the hearing, the trial judge issued a temporary restraining order in favor of the Citizens Lobby.
On March 3, 1982, the Michigan Citizens Lobby answered Equitable Life's complaint and filed a counterclaim for declaratory relief and preliminary and permanent injunctions barring Equitable Life from interfering with its rights of petition, assembly, expression, press and the initiation of legislation in the general public areas, including interior mall areas, of all shopping centers owned or managed by Equitable Life in Michigan, subject to...
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