Friday, December 5, 2025
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Court of Appeal:
Judge Put Unreasonable Limits on 1979 Leafleting Decision
Justices Reject View That Men’s Rights Activist Was Properly Barred From Passing Out Literature at Shipping Centers Because He Wanted to Impede Access to Stores and Was Impermissibly Giving Out Legal Advice Though a Nonlawyer
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Two adjoining shopping centers may not bar a men’s-rights advocate from distributing flyers on their premises, the Court of Appeal for this district declared yesterday, rejecting the trial court’s view that what the plaintiff wants to do is leafleting near the entrances to stores, which is impermissible under case law, and the materials in question are unprotected because they impermissibly provide legal advice from a nonattorney.
The issue was whether the California Supreme Court’s 1979 decision in Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center affords plaintiff/appellant Alex Salazar a right to pass out leaflets at the Citrus Plaza and Mountain Grove in Redlands. In Pruneyard, Justice Frank Newman, now deceased, wrote for the majority that sections “of the California Constitution protect speech and petitioning, reasonably exercised, in shopping centers even when the centers are privately owned.”
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Christian R. Gullon found that Pruneyard does not authorize the leafleting proposed by Salazar. He explained that the plaintiff, in deposition testimony, said he wants to distribute materials within five to 10 feet of entrances of a Target store, a movie theater, and a gym—not permitted by the 1979 decision or its progeny—and because his flyer advises that men need not pay child support to offspring who were born out of wedlock.
The declaration as to support obligations, Gullon found, is speech that is “unprotected because he is giving legal advice without a law license.”
Content of Leaflet
One of Salazar’s leaflets declares:
“Men are not legally and financially responsible for supporting a child that a woman chooses to have, for women’s reproductive decisions that only a woman can make with her female body, and for what women do with their bodies. And a man has the right to choose to support a child for any child born outside of marriage.
“Learn about men’s eMANcipation and join the fight men.”
The leaflet urges attendance at his talks.
Bendix’s Decision
In a decision reversing Gullon’s order denying a preliminary injunction, Justice Helen Bendix of Div. One said:
“Case law establishes plaintiff has standing to raise a facial challenge to the Centers’ restriction on free expression without demonstrating his own expression is protected. Alternatively, plaintiff has demonstrated his own constitutional injury. We disagree with the trial court that plaintiffs deposition testimony limits his challenge to being allowed to leaflet at store entrances, nor do his leaflets constitute unlicensed legal advice. Accordingly, plaintiff may invoke Pruneyard, under which the Centers’ total ban is unconstitutional. Also unconstitutional is the Centers’ requirement that persons obtain permission before engaging in expressive activity, which lacks objective criteria guiding the Centers’ discretion in applying the permit requirement.”
She added:
“Consistent with Pruneyard, defendants may impose appropriate time, place, and manner restrictions on expressive activity, but they may not ban it entirely.”
Store Aprons
Putting aside Salazar’s deposition testimony, Bendix pointed out that “there is no evidence that when plaintiff requested permission to leaflet at the Centers, he limited his request to store aprons.”
She added:
“Defendants never offered plaintiff alternative locations, or asked whether plaintiff would consider leafleting elsewhere in the Centers if he were not permitted to leaflet in the store aprons. His testimony therefore cannot be construed as insisting on leafleting in the store aprons and refusing to leaflet anywhere else, as defendants imply.”
Legal Advice
Bendix went on to say:
“Plaintiffs leaflets cannot fairly be construed as offering legal advice….Although arguably the leaflets state plaintiff’s interpretation of the law, the only recommendation the leaflets make is that the recipient attend plaintiffs presentation and/or contact him for further information. The leaflets do not advise recipients to cease paying child support. Rather, they present plaintiffs views on the law and invite the recipient to learn more at plaintiffs meetings.”
She said that if the leaflets actually encouraged men not to pay child support if they were not wed to the mother, “those leaflets still would not necessarily have constituted the unlicensed provision of legal advice” but that hypothetical need not be considered “given our conclusion that plaintiff’s leaflets do not advise any action other than to attend plaintiff’s meetings.”
The case is Salazar v. Majestic Realty Co., 2025 S.O.S. 3548.
Peter C. Sheridan and Steven Basileo of the Los Angeles firm of Glaser Weil Fink Howard Jordan & Shapiro represented the owner of the shopping centers. San Francisco attorney D. Gill Sperlein acted for Salazar.
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