Hudgens v. NLRB

In Hudgens v. NLRB (1976) 424 U.S. 507, striking employees were asked to leave property located near their employer's store under threat of arrest for trespass. The union filed an unfair labor practice charge against Hudgens. The Supreme Court held that the First Amendment did not provide a right to engage in informational picketing at a privately owned shopping center during a strike: "The constitutional guarantee of free expression has no part to play in a case such as this," which involves solely labor law, not constitutional law. (Hudgens, supra, 424 U.S. at p. 521.) The court instructed the National Labor Relations Board to " 'seek a proper accommodation' " between the statutory speech rights of the picketers and the property rights of the center's owner. (Ibid.) Hudgens, supra, 424 U.S. 507, arose from proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board, which had jurisdiction to adjudicate the labor dispute before it under a comprehensive set of federal laws regulating labor relations.