California Court of Appeal Invalidates Two Pro-Union Laws

In a case that likely will engender an attempt to secure review by the California Supreme Court, a California Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Ralphs Grocery, invalidating a California statutory scheme that made it virtually impossible for an employer to obtain injunctive relief in a peaceful labor dispute.  Ralphs Grocery Company v. United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 8.  (C060413 July 19, 2010.)

The Moscone Act, the first of the two laws invalidated by the court, provides that conduct relating to a “labor dispute,” such as peaceful picketing, “shall be legal, and no court nor any judge nor judges thereof, shall have jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or preliminary or permanent injunction which, in specific or general terms, prohibits any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, from [engaging in the specified conduct].” § 527.3, subd. (b).)

The court also invalidated a second law, Labor Code section 1138.1, which restricts the authority of the courts to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction in a case involving a labor dispute.  This law, which is patterned after the federal Norris LaGuardia Act, and therefore known as the “Little Norris LaGuardia Act,” also requires the court to hold a hearing with live witnesses, and to make a number of factual findings that are not required in non-labor trespass injunction cases. A number of other states also have Little Norris LaGuardia Acts. 

The plaintiff in the case, Ralphs Grocery Company, operated a food store located in a Sacramento, California shopping center.  The shopping center also contained several other stores, including a hair salon and two fast food restaurants.  The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (“UFCWU”) had engaged in picketing on the private sidewalk that was located between the store and the parking lot, which also was private property.  The entrances to the store were located just off the private sidewalk. 

According to the court, the primary issue in the case was “whether the state, based on the content of the speech, can force the owner or possessor of real property that is not a public forum to give an uninvited group access to the private property to engage in speech.”  Although there are circumstances in which a shopping center may be considered a “public forum” for free speech purposes under California law, the court concluded that the shopping center in which the Ralphs store was located was not.  Accordingly, “Ralphs, as a private property owner, could limit the speech allowed and could exclude anyone desiring to engage in prohibited speech.”

This result was not altered by the fact that Ralphs granted the right to other groups to use the entrance and private sidewalk for speech, including allowing groups to solicit money or signatures.  The court held that this did not transmute the property into a public forum as “[a] private owner may selectively permit speech or prohibit speech in a private forum without affecting the private nature of the forum.”

Having determined that the shopping center was not a public forum, the court then turned its attention to the constitutionality of the two California laws.  In agreement with the trial court, the Court of Appeal first held that the Moscone Act violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution as it improperly “favors speech related to labor disputes over speech related to other matters, based on the content of the speech.”  According to the court, the Moscone Act impermissibly “declares that labor protests on private property are legal, even though a similar protest concerning a different issue would constitute trespassing.  And it denies the property owner involved in a protest over a labor dispute access to the equity jurisdiction of the courts even though it does not deny such access if the protest does not involve a labor dispute.”

Turning to Labor Code section 1138.1, the court held it “suffers from the same constitutional defect as the Moscone Act -- it favors speech relating to labor disputes over speech relating to other matters.  It adds requirements for obtaining an injunction against labor protesters that do not exist when the protest, or other form of speech, is not labor related.”  Because of the requirements imposed by section 1138.1, “when a property owner seeks injunctive relief against a trespass by labor protesters, that owner cannot protect its ownership interest (or a tenant, its possessory interest) to prevent a trespass without overcoming difficult obstacles not applicable to injunctive relief against trespassers not engaged in a labor dispute.”  Rejecting the UFCW’s argument to the contrary, the court held that section 1138.1 was not a “rule of procedure,” because “it differentiates speech based on its content and imposes prerequisites that make it virtually impossible for a property owner to obtain injunctive relief.  The statute thereby forces the private property owner to provide a forum for speech with which the owner disagrees and it bases that compulsion on the content of the speech.”  As a result, like the Moscone Act, section 1138.1 was found to be inconsistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

As noted above, it is likely that the UFCWU, with the support of other unions, will ask the California Supreme Court to overturn the Court of Appeal.  There is little doubt that the unions will, at least in part, be motivated by the fact that other states have adopted laws similar to the two California statutes, and courts outside California may look to the Ralphs decision when examining these laws.

For more information, please contact the Seyfarth attorney with whom you work, or any Labor and Employment attorney on our website.