Also known as: public lands · public domain
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
2 senses
Government-owned land held for public access or benefit. The status of the land as open to public use is a factor that can require a possessor to anticipate harm to invitees from known or obvious dangers.
Government-owned land held for public access or benefit. The status of the land as open to public use can supply a public forum for protected expression.
Each sense below has its own examples, sources, and questions.
Government-owned land held for public access or benefit. The status of the land as open to public use is a factor that can require a possessor to anticipate harm to invitees from known or obvious dangers.
Government-owned land held for public access or benefit. The status of the land as open to public use can supply a public forum for protected expression.
The City of Fairmont maintains a plaza next to city hall that is open daily to the public. Pierre Poulin, a visitor, sits on the narrow unguarded ledge of a shallow reflecting pool during lunch as many others do. He slips and fractures his wrist. Because the plaza is public land that invitees are entitled to use, the city should have anticipated the harm despite the obvious drop and may be liable for failing to take reasonable precautions.
The California Coastal Commission requires a public access easement across private beachfront property as a permit condition for new construction. Paul Peterson, the owner, challenges the condition as an unconstitutional taking. Public land-use regulations and the public-trust doctrine operate independently of private servitudes and do not create the same running obligations analyzed under servitude law.
The Nollans apply for a permit to build a larger home on their beachfront lot. The commission conditions approval on a lateral public access easement along the shore. Pearl Porter, a neighboring owner, supports the condition because it would preserve public use of the tidelands that function as public land under the public-trust doctrine.
The Nollans own a beachfront lot in Ventura County, California. A concrete seawall approximately eight feet high separates the beach portion of their property from the rest of the lot. The historic mean high tide line determines the lot's oceanside boundary. The Nollans originally leased their property with an option to buy, and the building on the lot was a small bungalow totaling 504 square feet. The Nollans' option to purchase was conditioned on their promise to demolish the bungalow and replace it. On February 25, 1982, they submitted a permit application to the California Coastal Commission proposing to demolish the existing structure and replace it with a three-bedroom house. The Commission informed them that the permit would be granted subject to the condition that they allow the public an easement to pass across a portion of their property bounded by the mean high tide line and their seawall. On June 3, 1982, the Nollans filed a petition for writ of administrative mandamus in the Ventura County Superior Court to invalidate the access condition. The court remanded the case to the Commission for a full evidentiary hearing. After the hearing, the Commission reaffirmed the condition. The Superior Court ruled in favor of the Nollans on statutory grounds and directed that the permit condition be struck. While the Commission's appeal to the California Court of Appeal was pending, the Nollans tore down the bungalow, built the new house, and bought the property. The Court of Appeal reversed the Superior Court. The Nollans appealed to this Court, raising only the constitutional question.
View case3 common questions
No. When members of the public are entitled to use public land, that entitlement is an important factor indicating that the possessor should anticipate harm despite the obviousness of the danger. The duty of reasonable care therefore remains and may require additional precautions, warnings, or redesign of the area.
Supporting sources
No. Zoning, public-navigation servitudes, the public-trust doctrine, and related doctrines are excluded from the definition of servitudes. They operate as distinct public-law limitations rather than private running obligations.
Supporting sources
It can. When prior representation involved information about public land transactions or filings that later become part of the public record, the risk that confidential information will materially advance a new client's position may be reduced, though the substantial-relationship test still turns on factual overlap and the nature of the information actually obtained.
Supporting sources
Members of a church carry offensive signs on public land about 1,000 feet from a military funeral. Phuong Pham, a grieving family member, sees the signs and suffers severe emotional distress. The peaceful non-disruptive picketing on public land addresses matters of public concern and receives First Amendment protection that bars tort liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
A teenager burns a cross on public land in a residential neighborhood. The city enforces an ordinance banning cross burning as a form of fighting words. Priscilla Parks, the defendant, argues that the ordinance is viewpoint discriminatory because it singles out one type of symbolic speech while allowing other offensive expression on the same public land.
In the predawn hours of June 21, 1990, petitioner R.A.V., then a juvenile, and several other teenagers assembled a crudely made cross by taping together broken chair legs and burned the cross inside the fenced yard of a black family that lived across the street from the house where R.A.V. was staying. Although this conduct could have been punished under several Minnesota statutes carrying significant penalties, the City of St. Paul chose to charge R.A.V. under the St. Paul Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance. The ordinance provides that whoever places on public or private property a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including but not limited to a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. R.A.V. moved to dismiss the charge on the ground that the ordinance was substantially overbroad and impermissibly content-based and therefore facially invalid under the First Amendment, and the trial court granted the motion. The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed, construing the ordinance to reach only fighting words and concluding that it was not impermissibly content-based. This Court granted certiorari.
View caseMembers of a Native American church ingest peyote during a ceremony on federal public land. The state denies unemployment benefits after the participants are fired for violating drug laws. Paige Porter, a claimant, contends that the government's management of public lands must accommodate sincere religious practices under the Free Exercise Clause.
Alfred Smith and Galen Black were members of the Native American Church employed at a private drug rehabilitation organization in Oregon. They ingested peyote for sacramental purposes during a church ceremony. Their employer fired them for this conduct, treating it as work-related misconduct. Smith and Black applied to the Employment Division of the Oregon Department of Human Resources for unemployment compensation benefits, but the Division denied the claims on the ground that the firings constituted misconduct. The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the denials, holding that they violated the respondents' free exercise rights under the First Amendment. The Oregon Supreme Court concluded that respondents were entitled to payment of unemployment benefits. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded for a determination whether Oregon law prohibited the sacramental use of peyote. On remand, the Oregon Supreme Court held that the statute made no exception for sacramental use and reaffirmed its conclusion that denying benefits violated the respondents' constitutional rights. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari a second time. Oregon law prohibits knowing or intentional possession of peyote, a Schedule I controlled substance, making it a Class B felony. The respondents' peyote use occurred at a Native American Church ceremony and formed the sole basis for their terminations and benefit denials.
1 common questions
Yes. Peaceful, non-disruptive picketing on public land that addresses matters of public concern receives special First Amendment protection. Tort liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress is barred absent additional unprotected conduct.
Supporting sources
…its health and safety laws to conform to the diversity of religious belief, but should not have to tailor its management of public lands, Lyng, supra , or its administration of welfare programs, Roy, supra . : Justice O’Connor suggests that “[t]here is nothing talismanic about neutral laws of general…