Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe

Background

The case involved a racially integrated community group from Chicago, Organization for a Better Austin, and a real estate broker who lived in Westchester, a nearby suburb. The group handed out critical leaflets in Westchester accusing the broker of "panic peddling" or blockbusting in Chicago, urging neighbors to call him and asking him to stop soliciting. A trial court issued a temporary injunction banning the group from distributing any literature anywhere in Westchester, and an Illinois appellate court affirmed.

Reasoning

The key question was whether a court could bar a group from peaceful leafleting across an entire town. The Supreme Court said peaceful pamphleteering is protected speech and any court order that suppresses publication carries a heavy presumption against it. The record showed the leafleting was orderly and caused no breaches of the peace. The broker failed to meet the heavy burden to justify such a broad prior restraint, so the injunction could not stand.

Real world impact

The ruling protects community groups, activists, and citizens who use leaflets and similar peaceful means to criticize business practices from being shut out by blanket local injunctions. It means courts must show strong justification before stopping public criticism in advance. The opinion also noted the injunction had been in force for years and treated it as effectively final for review, so temporary bans of long duration can be reviewed at the Supreme Court level.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Harlan dissented, arguing the Court lacked jurisdiction to decide a nonfinal, interlocutory order and that Illinois' procedures should be allowed to reach a true final judgment before this Court intervened. He would have dismissed the case for lack of appellate jurisdiction.