Ninth Circuit Finds State Trespass and Nuisance Laws Not Preempted by Secondary Boycott Law

In a recent decision involving the interplay between California law and federal labor law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that state trespass and nuisance laws are not preempted by the federal secondary boycott law. Thus, the owner of a California mall will be permitted to sue a local union of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters to enjoin alleged violations of the mall’s “time, place and manner” restrictions in front of a store that was being renovated by a nonunion contractor for one of the mall’s tenants. The mall’s complaint alleged that union members marched in a circle in front of the tenant’s store, yelling, chanting, blowing whistles, damaging a construction barricade, hitting their picket signs against a mall railing, and cat-calling and making sexually provocative gestures toward female patrons. Retail Property Trust v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 768 F.3d 938 (9th Cir. 2014).