Homeowners association must protect free speech...

[BenTucker]

so much for private property in land trumping freedom of speech...

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In an appeals court decision last week, new rights are provided for more than one million residents of private communities governed by homeowners associations in the state.

"For the first time anywhere in the United States, an appellate court has ruled that such private communities are 'constitutional actors' and must therefore respect their members' freedom of speech," said Rutgers Law Professor Frank Askin, lead counsel in the case. "The court recognized that just as shopping malls are the new public square, these associations have become and act, for all practical purposes, like municipal entities unto themselves."

The case involved the 10,000-resident community of Twin Rivers in East Windsor, where the rights to post political signs on members' lawns, to equal access to the community newspaper run by the Board of Trustees, and to equitable access to the community room for meetings for dissidents. The complaint raised claims under the free speech protections of the New Jersey Constitution.

The opinion by the appellate panel relied heavily upon earlier decisions of the New Jersey Supreme Court which held that privately owned and operated shopping malls were public forums under the State Constitution, and had to allow non-profit advocacy groups to gather petitions and distribute educational material on mall property.

Building on those cases, the court held that private residential communities could no more deny free speech to its residents to discuss public issues than municipal governments.

The case is a national landmark and was awaited by homeowners groups across the country in hopes of emulating a similar decision.

[lapafrax]

Well the US isn't a libertarian society.  Yet.

Once it is, property owners should have the right to deny free speech on their own property.