A wrong ruling on worker safety, litter

Seattle Times Editorial
August 10, 2002

The Washington State Court of Appeals has declared that telephone poles on the streets of Seattle constitute a public forum, and that citizens have a constitutional right to stick things on them. This is a nutty ruling, and the city should appeal it.

The case was about ads for Mighty Movers Inc. But it would apply equally well to ads for rock bands, diet pills, lost dogs, lawn mowing service, escort services, candidates for public office or anything that may be said or sold.

The ruling was written by Judge Marlin Appelwick and signed by judges Ken Grosse and Susan Agid. To put it into simple language, the judges said that people have been stapling stuff to telephone poles for a long time, and therefore have a right to keep on doing it. The telephone pole, in the court's words, has become a "traditional public forum."

By the same reasoning, if Mighty Movers Inc. had been enterprising enough to plaster its posters to the sides of fire stations and public schools, those would have become "traditional public forums," too. Even the vandals who spray graffiti might file suit against the city, declaring that concrete walls had become a "traditional public forum."

The common-sense reason for the city ordinance was that the layers of posters made it hard to climb poles, and that workers cut themselves on the porcupine layer of half-ripped-out staples.

It is notable that one of the parties to the case -- one of the parties who lost -- is the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Their concern for worker safety is legitimate in the real world of pole climbers.

The court said the city could protect the electrical workers by enacting "time, place and manner restrictions." In other words, the city cannot stop someone from stapling a poster to one of its own poles, but it can have a law that after a week, that person has to come back, take the poster down and carefully pull the staples out.

Fancy enforcing that. The city may be reduced to something like that if this ruling is not overturned.