Edward J. Debartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Construction Trades Council et al. (485 U.S. 568)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 20, 1988 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 485 U.S. 568 · 108 S. Ct. 1392
- Decided
- April 20, 1988
- Term
- October Term 1987
- Vote
- 8–0
- Majority author
- Justice White
- Issue area
- Unions
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. This case centers around the respondent union’s peaceful handbilling of the businesses operating in a shopping mall in Tampa, Florida, owned by petitioner, the Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation (DeBartolo). The union’s primary labor dispute was with H. J. High Construction Company (High) over alleged substandard wages and fringe benefits. High was retained by the H. J. Wilson Company (Wilson) to construct a department store in the mall, and neither DeBartolo nor any of the other 85 or so mall tenants had any contractual right to influence the selection of contractors. The union, however, sought to obtain their influence upon Wilson and High by distributing handbills asking mall customers not to shop at any of the stores in the mall “until the Mall’s owner publicly promises that all construction at the Mall will be done using contractors who pay their employees fair wages and fringe benefits.” The handbills’ message was that “[t]he payment of substandard wages not only diminishes the working person’s ability to purchase with earned, rather than borrowed, dollars, but it also undercuts the wage standard of the entire community.” The handbills made clear that the union was seeking only a consumer boycott against the other mall tenants, not a secondary strike by their employees. At all four entrances to the mall for about three…
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