Real
Cases in Real Estate
is a weekly update on real estate law, with legal principles illustrated and
explained by lawsuits from around the country. The topics are wide-ranging for
appeal to a broad spectrum of readers including lawyers, homeowners, investors
and the general public. Andrea Lee Negroni, a Washington DC
attorney and legal writer with 25 years of experience in financial services and
mortgage law, contributes the case summaries.
Followers of
Real Cases in Real Estate will learn and be entertained by lawsuits
involving nuisance, trespass, zoning violations, deed restrictions, title
insurance, public utilities, mechanics liens, construction defects, adverse
possession, foreclosure and eviction, divorce and marital property rights,
tenants' rights, and more. Real Cases in Real Estate uncovers the
unpredictable, amusing, and sometimes outrageous disputes between next-door
neighbors, contractors and homeowners, condo boards and residents, real estate
brokers and homebuyers, and zoning administrators and developers.
Each fully
cited case summary highlights the essential law of the case and explains the
principal legal theories and concepts relevant to the outcome. Plain language
treatment makes Real Cases in Real Estate accessible to lawyers and
laymen alike.
Whether you
follow real estate law professionally or as a hobby, you'll find something new
and useful every week in Real Cases in Real Estate.
Updates
for the Week of January 25th, 2013
Right
to Solicit Donations Outside a Privately Owned Grocery Store is Not Guaranteed Under
California's Constitution.
Ralph's Grocery Store sought and won an injunction
against the Missionary Church, whose members gathered on the store's adjacent sidewalks
and walkways to solicit donations for the poor. The Church did not seek Ralph's
permission to solicit there, because it claimed a Constitutional right to
expression in an area open to the public. Ralphs had "uniform rules for
expressive activity" with "time, place and manner restrictions,"
stating that individuals engaged in expressive activity must remain 20 feet
from a store entrance.
Ralphs
invited people onto its property only to shop and had no amenities such as
plazas, walkways, or courtyards. The grocer did not encourage customers to
congregate at the store except for shopping. Appealing the injunction, the Church
relied on a California decision holding that "freedom of speech, without
the permission of the store owner, is constitutionally protected on a privately
owned sidewalk outside the doors of a single, free-standing grocery
supermarket."
Both
the United States Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court have held that
peaceful picketing in a privately owned shopping mall is Constitutionally
protected, but this position has been modified somewhat, limiting protected
expression to expression that is related to the shopping center's commercial
purpose. Thus, picketing a store at the mall is protected, because requiring
picketers to express themselves elsewhere would surely dilute their message by
"not calling attention to the problem which is the subject of the picketing."
Further complicating the expression-at-the-mall situation is the fact that
large shopping centers have become similar to town centers, where large numbers
people father for various amenities, not just shopping. California courts have
decided that in large town-center type shopping centers, expression is
protected because the centers are like "public forums."
However,
Ralph's was not a large shopping mall or a place with multiple amenities to
attract the public. The Church members' solicitation activities had nothing to
do with the operation of the grocery store. The Church had no grievance with
Ralph's. Its members' solicitations were therefore neither expressions in a
public forum, or diminished by the fact that they could not occur near the
store. The California appeals court held that the protection of the church
members' activities were not entitled to the highest level of speech protection
and upheld the injunction.
RALPHS
GROCERY COMPANY, v. MISSIONARY CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS CHRIST, 205
Cal. App. 4th 490; 2012 Cal. App. LEXIS 478 (April 25, 2012) [enhanced version available to lexis.com subscribers].
....
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