Case tests authority to regulate mobile home park speech

Members of All Parks Alliance for Change showed up at the Ardmore Village mobile home park in Lakeville. They wanted to let residents know about their rights and protections as mobile home park residents.

Kay Nord-Hunt, who represents the alliance, says members tried to leave leaflets on the doors of some of the mobile homes when Ardmore Village told them to stop.

"They said that was not allowed under Minnesota law and instead they could only leave the leaflets at the park office, although they admitted that people wouldn't see them there," says Nord-Hunt.

So the alliance sued Ardmore Village. Six months into the case, Ardmore Village adopted a new rule which allowed outside organizations to leaflet and go door to door in the park during daylight hours, Monday through Saturday. Residents could also put their names on a no-contact list. Tom DeVincke represents Ardmore Village and says the park was within its rights to set limits.

"Manufactured home communities, much like an apartment building or condominium association, can make rules and regulations about what happens in the common areas," says DeVincke.

Minnesota law says mobile home park owners can't bar people from peacefully organizing, canvassing or leafletting for any non-commercial purpose. On the other hand, the statute says park owners can adopt rules that set reasonable limits on those activities.

DeVincke says the rule limiting canvassing to daylight hours strikes a reasonable balance.

"There's an interest in people getting their message out; there's an interest in door-to-door activity. It's especially important for non-commercial causes, political causes if you will. And yet that has to be balanced against the person's right to not be subject to such invasion 24 hours a day, seven days a week," says DeVincke.

But Kay Nord-Hunt disagrees. She says most people aren't home during the day, and mailing literature can be expensive -- particularly when addresses are out of date. She says the case raises the broader issue of the amount of authority mobile home parks have to regulate their residents.

"The park owners really get to be like a quasi-government, but the residents have no say," says Nord-Hunt. "And this is part of a broader statute in trying to make sure that when you are a resident in one of these manufactured home parks, your rights are not any less than if you're in a home in St. Paul."

Some legal observers say the issue of whether a park is a kind of government is important to analyzing cases like these. Heidi Kitrosser teaches First Amendment law at the University of Minnesota. She says the issue isn't clear cut. But she says generally free speech protections apply to the state, not to the actions by private entities.

"It's pretty hard these days to win arguments that private actors should be treated like the state, and should be bound by the Constitution," says Kitrosser. "Having said that, though, there is some supportive precedent -- and it really comes down to whether the court will buy that the mobile home park is effectively is a state actor."

The court will likely issue a ruling on the case during this term.

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