U.S. Supreme Court Denies Review Of Union Trespassing Case In California

Labor unions recently won a victory over employers in California when the U.S. Supreme Court denied review of the California Supreme Court's decision in Ralphs Grocery Co. v. UFCW. The California court had upheld two state statutes that restrict the availability of injunctions against picketing by labor unions on private property. Ralphs Grocery Co. v. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 8, 55 Cal.4th 1083 (2012).

Ralphs and several trade associations urged the U.S. Supreme Court to grant review of the California decision, arguing that (1) the state laws in question are discriminatory because they sanction trespassing on private property by labor unions to engage in expressive activities such as picketing, but not by any other organizations, and (2) the state laws result in a violation of constitutional property rights.

The Supreme Court's denial of review is not a decision on the merits of these arguments. Nevertheless, at least for the foreseeable future, the denial means labor unions—but no other organizations—will have the right to engage in picketing and other expressive activities on an employer's private property.

As a dissent in the Ralphs case pointed out, the decision "places California on a collision course with the federal courts." This was a reference to an earlier decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit holding that one of the California statutes at issue in this case results in unconstitutional content discrimination. Waremart Foods v. NLRB, 354 F.3d 870, 872 (D.C. Cir. 2004). While it seems that this conflict between the California high court and the D.C. Circuit must be resolved at some point, the timing of such a resolution is now uncertain.

The California Anti-Injunction Statutes

One of the statutes at issue in the Ralphs decision, the Moscone Act (California Code of Civil Procedure section 527.3), provides that picketing and related union activities during a labor dispute cannot be enjoined except in the case of certain unlawful conduct. This restraint on state court power does not apply in the case of picket line misconduct by a labor union, such as mass picketing and violence, but it has prevented injunctions against union trespassing.

The second statute, California Labor Code section 1138.1, limits the authority of state courts to issue an injunction in a labor dispute and establishes several difficult requirements that an employer must overcome to obtain an injunction against union trespassing or picket line misconduct, such as mass picketing and violence. This statute has effectively prevented employers from obtaining injunctions in labor disputes.

Free Speech Precedent in Labor Disputes

The disagreement between the D.C. Circuit and the California Supreme Court results primarily from opposing views of U.S. Supreme Court precedent involving content discrimination under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions are the focus of this debate.

In the first decision, Police Department of the City of Chicago v. Mosely, 408 U.S. 92 (1972), the Supreme Court declared...