Lloyd owned a shopping mall.
Tanner wanted to pass out flyers in the mall to protest the Vietnam War.
Lloyd tried to get Tanner removed from the property.
Tanner claimed he had a 1st
Amendment right to free speech.
Lloyd claimed that the mall
was private property and was not bound by the 1st Amendment.
The State Action
Doctrine says that the Bill of
Rights only applies to governmental actions.
Tanner claimed that when a
private entity is open to the public, or performing a governmental
function, they are bound by the Public Function Exception.
See Marsh v. Alabama (326 U.S. 501 (1946)), and Amalgamated
Employees Union Local 590 v. Logan Valley Plaza, Inc. (391 U.S. 308 (1968)).
The US Supreme Court found for
Lloyd and said that Tanner did not have a right to distribute flyers.
The Court distinguished Logan
Valley by saying that in that case,
it was a union picketing a specific store in the mall, and they couldn't
do that anywhere else. Here Tanner's flyers had nothing to do with mall
business.
The Court also noted that
there were public streets close by, so Tanner's right to hand out flyers
was not being significantly infringed.
