Considering the “broadly applicable right to free speech” granted under the state constitution, the court reasoned, “in balancing the interests of the parties, [we conclude that the homeowners'] rights to engage in expressive exercises, including those relating to public issues in their own community…must take precedence over the [association's] private property rights.”
Balancing Interests
The state Supreme Court disagreed. Like the lower court, the Supreme Court assessed the competing interests of property owners and the community association, but unlike the appeals court, it concluded that the balance tipped in the association's favor. The key question, the state's high court said, is “whether this case presents one of those limited circumstances where, in the setting of a private community, the association's rules and regulations are limited by the constitutional rights of plaintiffs.” The court's short answer to that question was – no.
Writing the unanimous opinion, Justice John Wallace stated: “In balancing plaintiffs' expressional rights against the association's private property interest, the association's policies do not violate the free speech and right of assembly clauses [of the New Jersey Constitution].”
The court rejected the central argument in the plaintiffs' suit – that in establishing and enforcing rules for the community, the association was “acting as a municipality.” Equally significant, the court recognized that while individual constitutional rights are fundamental, “they are not absolute.” There are circumstances, the court noted, “where citizens may waive or otherwise curtail their rights.”
Those circumstances exist in a common interest ownership community, where, the court said, owners enter into a contractual relationship with the association in which they agree voluntarily to abide by its rules. “The mutual benefit and reciprocal nature of those rules and regulations and their enforcement is essential to the fundamental nature of the communal arrangement that Twin Rivers residents enjoy,” Justice Wallace explained.
No Invitation to Public Use
The court's earlier decisions imposing constitutional principles on private owners hinged in part on a finding that the owners to some extent “invited public use” of their property. That wasn't the case at Twin Rivers, the court said, noting, “The mere fact that owners may sell or rent property to members of the public who are invited to come into Twin Rivers and inspect such property hardly constitutes a public invitation.”
Continued here. |
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