Amalgamated Food Employees Union Local

590 V. LOGAN VALLEY PLAZA, INC 391 U.S. 308 (1968)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Logan Valley Plaza, Inc. owns a large, newly developed shopping center complex, known as the Logan Valley Mall, located near the City of Altoona, Pennsylvania. There are five entrance roads into the center. Aside from these five entrances, the shopping center is totally separated from the adjoining roads by earthen berms. On December 8, 1965, Weis opened for business, employing a wholly nonunion staff of employees. A few days after it opened for business, Weis posted a sign on the exterior of its building prohibiting trespassing or soliciting by anyone other than its employees on its porch or parking lot. On December 17, 1965, members of Amalgamated Food Employees Union, Local 590, began picketing Weis. They carried signs stating that the Weis market was nonunion and that its employees were not 'receiving union wages or other union benefits.' The pickets did not include any employees of Weis, but rather were all employees of competitors of Weis. The picketing was peaceful at all times and unaccompanied by either threats or violence. On December 27, Weis and Logan instituted an action in equity and that court immediately issued an ex parte order enjoining petitioners from picketing and trespassing upon . . . the [Weis] storeroom, porch and parcel pick-up area . . . [and] the [Logan] parking area and all entrances and exits leading to said parking area. That court explicitly rejected petitioners' claim under the First Amendment that they were entitled to picket within the confines of the shopping center, and their contention that the suit was within the primary jurisdiction of the NLRB. The trial judge held that the injunction was justified both in order to protect respondents' property rights and because the picketing was unlawfully aimed at coercing Weis to compel its employees to join a union. On appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, with three Justices dissenting, affirmed the issuance of the injunction on the sole ground that petitioners' conduct constituted a trespass on respondents' property.