Inc. Madsen v. Women's Health Center

The majority upheld parts of the injunction and struck down others. The record of fact found by the lower court was accepted by the majority, which noted the petitioners "studiously refrained" from challenging it and to the Florida Supreme Court stated that the question at hand was one of law only. In making its decision, the Court first examined the injunction in order to determine what level of scrutiny to apply. They rejected the petitioners' contention that the injunction was content-based, finding that, while addressed to a specific group which held a certain view, it was addressed to that group because of their past conduct rather than its views: "There is no suggestion in this record that Florida law would not equally restrain similar conduct directed at a target having nothing to do with abortion."

The majority declined to follow the path of strict scrutiny but was unsatisfied with intermediate scrutiny as well, noting that injunctions "carry greater risks of censorship and discriminatory application than do general ordinances." It thus took a middle road in examining the sections of the injunction in dispute, adopting the standard that to be constitutional they should "burden no more speech than necessary to serve a significant government interest." Applying this standard to the contested sections of the injunction, they found as follows: The 36-foot buffer zone (section 3) was not unduly burdensome in part. The majority noted that one petitioner admitted that protesters would still be only 10 or 12 feet away from the driveway of the clinic. Further, the protesters "can still be seen and heard from the clinic parking lots." The part of the zone that extended to the private property to the north and west of the clinic was too restrictive, however, since there was no evidence of protesters impeding access to the clinic while located on that property. The noise restrictions (section 4) were upheld on the ground that such limitation was necessary to protect the health of clinic patients, but the prohibition of "observable images" was found to be too broad an infringement of speech, since those inside the clinic could close the curtains if they were upset by any images displayed. Prohibiting the demonstrators from approaching clinic patients within 300 feet of the clinic (section 5) was struck down as overly burdensome; the First Amendment does not protect citizens from being confronted with speech they find offensive. The 300-foot buffer zone around residences (section 6) and the prohibition of use of sound amplification at those sites was struck down as overly broad. A "limitation on the time, duration, and number of pickets outside a smaller zone could have accomplished the desired result." The mention of parties acting "in concert with the petitioners was not held to be too broad or vague; in any case, because it named persons other than the petitioners, the petitioners lacked standing to challenge it.

Justice Souter issued a concurring opinion, which accepted the reasoning of the majority. He noted that petitioners themselves accepted a legitimate government interest of public safety, the free movement of traffic, and property rights. He wanted to clarify the holding regarding the "in concert" provision, declaring that it was "a matter to be taken up in individual cases, and not to be decided on the basis of protesters' viewpoints."