Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner

Background

Donald Tanner, Betsy Wheeler, and Susan Roberts are young people who quietly handed out anti-draft and Vietnam War leaflets inside Lloyd Center, a large privately owned shopping mall in Portland, Oregon. Lloyd Center is an enclosed indoor mall with many stores, interior promenades called malls, private sidewalks, and security guards who act with police authority. The owner had a strict rule banning handbills inside the mall; guards told the distributors to leave and suggested they continue on the public sidewalks outside. The distributors left and sued after lower courts said the mall functioned like a public business district and protected their speech.

Reasoning

The Court asked whether a private shopping center that invites the public can be treated as public property for unrelated speech. The majority emphasized that Marsh and Logan Valley allow access when property has been dedicated to public use or when speakers cannot reach their audience elsewhere. Because the leaflets were unrelated to the mall’s business and the center was not dedicated to all public uses, and because public sidewalks and streets around the center offered adequate alternatives, the Court held the owner's property and due process rights prevail over the claimed First Amendment right to leaflet inside.

Real world impact

The decision lets owners of privately operated malls bar political or other unrelated handbilling inside enclosed malls. Distributors must use public streets and sidewalks or other available forums. The ruling reversed a court order that had required the mall to allow all noncommercial leafleting; it is not a broad ruling extending to cases where the speech is tied to the mall's operations.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Marshall’s dissent argued the mall was functionally equivalent to a public business district, pointed to permitted events and soliciting in the mall, and would have protected the distributors' speech under Logan Valley and Marsh.