Schwartz-Torrance Investment Corp. v. Bakery & Confectionery Workers' Union

This case requires a decision upon the sole issue of whether the owner of a shopping center may enjoin as trespass a union’s peaceful picketing of premises leased by an employer from the owner of the shopping center. As we shall explain, we have concluded that such owner is not entitled to enjoin the union from so picketing.

Plaintiff owns and operates a shopping center located on a 6-acre parcel of land leased from the City of Torrance. The shopping center consists of a parking lot, driveways, sidewalks, and several stores. Plaintiff subleases the stores to various tenants, but retains exclusive control over the parking lot and the sidewalks, including those sidewalks adjacent to the subleased stores. Tom Revels, the owner of Tom Revels Bakery, leases a store in plaintiff’s shopping center for a monthly rental of $450 plus 5 per cent of the gross income of the bakery.

Defendant union sought unsuccessfully to organize the four or five employees of the Tom Revels Bakery and towards that end began on February 16, 1962, to engage in picketing in front of the bakery on the sidewalks belonging to the plaintiff. The pickets carried signs stating that, “Revels Bakery is nonunion and is…