Judge refuses to block Black Lives Matter protest at Mall of America because of jurisdictional issue
A Minnesota judge has refused to block a Mall of America demonstration on Wednesday by Black Lives Matter, despite finding that the mall is private property that can bar activity hostile to its business.
In a decision on Tuesday, Judge Karen Janisch said she could not issue an injunction against the demonstration because the mall had failed to show that the unincorporated group Black Lives Matter was a legal entity that could be sued, and had failed to show that the group had been served with the summons and complaint.
“Although protests and actions within shopping malls or other spaces have been an issue of legal disputes and requests for injunctions for decades,” Janisch wrote, the Mall of America “has not provided the court with any legal authority or specific prior court decision in which a court has entered a broad temporary restraining order enjoining the future acts of unidentified individuals or the public at large.”
Janisch did, however, issue an injunction barring three Black Lives Matter organizers from protesting at the mall. Those defendants could still protest outside the mall’s territorial limits, Janisch said.
Janisch also denied a request to force organizers of the demonstration to announce it had been canceled. The Associated Press, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the New York Times and the St. Paul Pioneer Press have stories on the decision.
Janisch noted that a Black Lives Matter protest at the mall on Dec. 20, 2014, led to 22 arrests. That demonstration resulted in the temporary closing of about 80 stores and depressed sales, according to the Pioneer Press.
Mitchell Hamline law professor Raleigh Levine told the Pioneer Press that courts in other states have found that large malls are public gathering spaces where people enjoy greater free speech protections. Minnesota courts, however, haven’t provided that kind of broad speech protection.
