US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

CITY OF ERIE ET AL. v. PAP'S A. M., TDBA "KANDYLAND" 529 U.S. 277

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OCTOBER TERM, 1999

Syllabus

CITY OF ERIE ET AL. v. PAP'S A. M., TDBA "KANDYLAND"

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

No.98-1161. Argued November 10, 1999-Decided March 29, 2000

Erie, Pennsylvania, enacted an ordinance making it a summary offense to knowingly or intentionally appear in public in a "state of nudity." Respondent Pap's A. M. (hereinafter Pap's), a Pennsylvania corporation, operated "Kandyland," an Erie establishment featuring totally nude erotic dancing by women. To comply with the ordinance, these dancers had to wear, at a minimum, "pasties" and a "G-string." Pap's filed suit against Erie and city officials, seeking declaratory relief and a permanent injunction against the ordinance's enforcement. The Court of Common Pleas struck down the ordinance as unconstitutional, but the Commonwealth Court reversed. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in turn reversed, finding that the ordinance's public nudity sections violated Pap's right to freedom of expression as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The Pennsylvania court held that nude dancing is expressive conduct entitled to some quantum of protection under the First Amendment, a view that the court noted was endorsed by eight Members of this Court in Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 501 U. S. 560. The Pennsylvania court explained that, although one stated purpose of the ordinance was to combat negative secondary effects, there was also an unmentioned purpose to "impact negatively on the erotic message of the dance." Accordingly, the Pennsylvania court concluded that the ordinance was related to the suppression of expression. Because the ordinance was not content neutral, it was subject to strict scrutiny. The court held that the ordinance failed the narrow tailoring requirement of strict scrutiny. Mter this Court granted certiorari, Pap's filed a motion to dismiss the case as moot, noting that Kandyland no longer operated as a nude dancing club, and that Pap's did not operate such a club at any other location. This Court denied the motion.

Held: The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded. 553 Pa. 348, 719 A. 2d 273, reversed and remanded.

JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, concluding that the case is not moot. A case is moot when the issues presented are no longer "live" or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome. County of Los Angeles v. Davis, 440 U. S. 625, 631. Simply closing Kandyland is not sufficient to moot the case because Pap's is still incorporated under Pennsylvania


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law, and could again decide to operate a nude dancing establishment in Erie. Moreover, Pap's failed, despite its obligation to the Court, to mention the potential mootness issue in its brief in opposition, which was filed after Kandyland was closed and the property sold. See Board of License Comm'rs of Tiverton v. Pastore, 469 U. S. 238, 240. In any event, this is not a run of the mill voluntary cessation case. Here it is the plaintiff who, having prevailed below, seeks to have the case declared moot. And it is the defendant city that seeks to invoke the federal judicial power to obtain this Court's review of the decision. Cf. ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U. S. 605, 617-618. The city has an ongoing injury because it is barred from enforcing the ordinance's public nudity provisions. If the ordinance is found constitutional, then Erie can enforce it, and the availability of such relief is sufficient to prevent the case from being moot. See Church of Scientology of Cal. v. United States, 506 U. S. 9, 13. And Pap's still has a concrete stake in the case's outcome because, to the extent it has an interest in resuming operations, it has an interest in preserving the judgment below. This Court's interest in preventing litigants from attempting to manipulate its jurisdiction to insulate a favorable decision from review further counsels against a finding of mootness. See, e. g., United States v. W T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 632. Pp. 287-289.

JUSTICE O'CONNOR, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE KENNEDY, and JUSTICE BREYER, concluded in Parts III and IV that:

1. Government restrictions on public nudity such as Erie's ordinance should be evaluated under the framework set forth in United States v. O'Brien, 391 U. S. 367, for content-neutral restrictions on symbolic speech. Although being "in a state of nudity" is not an inherently expressive condition, nude dancing of the type at issue here is expressive conduct that falls within the outer ambit of the First Amendment's protection. See, e. g., Barnes, supra, at 565-566 (plurality opinion). What level of scrutiny applies is determined by whether the ordinance is related to the suppression of expression. E. g., Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397,403. If the governmental purpose in enacting the ordinance is unrelated to such suppression, the ordinance need only satisfy the "less stringent," intermediate O'Brien standard. E. g., Johnson, supra, at 403. If the governmental interest is related to the expression's content, however, the ordinance falls outside O'Brien and must be justified under the more demanding, strict scrutiny standard. Johnson, supra, at 403. An almost identical public nudity ban was held not to violate the First Amendment in Barnes, although no five Members of the Court agreed on a single rationale for that conclusion. The ordinance here, like the statute in Barnes, is on its face a general prohibition on public nudity. By its terms, it regulates conduct alone. It does not target


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