Lawyer Loses Challenge To Rule Limiting The Amount Of Time He Could Speak At City Council Meeting

by: Peter J. Gallagher (@pjsgallagher) (LinkedIn)

There is a lawyer joke in here somewhere about lawyers suing to get more time to speak or how someone should sue to force lawyers to talk less. Potential jokes aside, the issue in Feld v. City of Orange was an interesting one. In Feld, plaintiff challenged a municipal ordinance that reduced, from ten minutes to five minutes, the time members of the public could speak on certain matters at city council hearings. Plaintiff claimed that this ordinance violated his First Amendment right to free speech. Spoiler Alert: He lost. But the issue and the decision are nonetheless interesting.

Feld was the latest chapter in litigation that has been raging between plaintiff, a lawyer, acting on behalf of himself and his parents' business, and the City of Orange for years. (In a prior decision, the Appellate Division noted that plaintiff considered himself a "zealous gadfly" and a "radical barrister.") At some point during this long-running battle, the city adopted an ordinance "that reduced the time from ten minutes to five that individual members of the public could speak at City Council meetings on general issues, agenda items or second readings of ordinances before adoption." The city council claimed the change was necessary because "council meetings can extend late into the evening or early into the next day" and this "discourages, if not precludes[,] a fair opportunity to be heard by other members of the public." The city council further claimed that, "without appropriate and rational limitations, the rights of all public speakers [would be] curtailed and undermined." The city council also noted that other municipalities limited the time for speaking during public meetings to five minutes.

The underlying issue in Feld involved plaintiff's objection to the city council's adoption of a resolution that allowed the mayor to sign a lease and option to buy a building owned by the YWCA of Orange, which was in bankruptcy. He challenged the resolution when it was before the city council, and, after it passed, filed a 257 paragraph complaint in lieu of prerogative writs seeking to have it invalidated. As part of this complaint, he also challenged the rule reducing the amount of time members of the public could speak at city council hearings. After filing his complaint, plaintiff filed an order to show seeking, among other things, to restrain the city from enforcing the five-minute rule while the lawsuit was pending. The trial court heard oral argument on the order to show cause, and took testimony from a witness on behalf of the city, who testified that the rule was necessary to "administer the Council meetings more efficiently," and that it was an attempt to "make sure that all of the comments are heard and that everyone gets a chance to talk."

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Climbing A Light Pole Is Incidental To Fixing The Light At The Top, Therefore Property Owner Not Liable For Independent Contractor’s Injuries

by: Peter J. Gallagher (@pjsgallagher) (LinkedIn)

On this blog I have occasionally written about the duty owed by landowners to, among others, visitors and trespassers and folks walking along a landowner's sweetgum-spiky-seed-pod-riddled sidewalk. In Pisieczko v. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the Appellate Division addressed a similar situation — the duty owed by a landowner to an independent contractor performing work on its property.

In Pisiaczko, plaintiff was an independent contractor who worked for defendant "doing odd jobs, such as repairing different fixtures, changing lights, and installing tiles." In this capacity, he was hired by defendant to repair lights, which were "affixed to wooden poles" and located in one of defendant's parking lots. Defendant provided no guidance or supervision to plaintiff. Before beginning his work, plaintiff pushed on one of the wooden poles to make sure it was sturdy. When it did not move, he took a ladder, leaned it against the pole, and extended it to approximately two feet below the light fixture. He secured the ladder with straps around the pole. Unfortunately, while plaintiff was on the ladder testing the fixture, the pole broke. Plaintiff jumped off the ladder from about 20 feet to avoid falling into barbed wire. He injured his heel in the process.

Plaintiff sued. He alleged that the pole was rotten inside, which caused it to break. (The parties agreed that the rot was not visible before the pole broke.) Defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that it was not liable for plaintiff's damages because the decision to place the ladder against the pole was incident to the specific work plaintiff was hired to perform. The trial court agreed and granted the motion. Plaintiff appealed.

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Free Speech In Condos and Co-Ops: Round III Goes To The Resident

by: Peter J. Gallagher (@pjsgallagher)

It is not quite Ali-Frazier or even Gatti-Ward, but the New Jersey Supreme Court just delivered its third opinion in the past seven years regarding the free speech rights of residents in common interest communities (condos and co-ops). In Dublirer v. 2000 Linwood Avenue, Owners, Inc., the Court ruled that a resident who was a regular critic of the co-op's board of directors had the right to distribute leaflets under apartment doors throughout the building. (We previously wrote about the Appellate Division decision that the Supreme Court reviewed on appeal – look here.) The Court held that the co-op's "House Rule" purportedly banning all soliciting and distributing of written materials, including the resident's leaflets, was an unconstitutional abridgment of his free speech rights. In doing so, the Court clarified the standard that should generally be applied when evaluating similar issues — which arise frequently in common-interest communities — and described the types of restrictions that could be adopted without infringing on the free speech rights of residents.

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