The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision, which held that the limits that the owner of a manufactured housing community had placed on noncommercial speech within a manufactured home park are “reasonable limits as to time, place and manner under Minn. Statute.
In 2004 All Parks Alliance for Change sued Uniprop Manufactured Housing Communities Income Fund for their right to distribute leaflets and flyers that educated residents about their rights in a manufactured housing community. The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed a friend of the court brief in the case in support of APACs free speech rights. The ACLU-MN noted that park residents are in a precarious legal situation because while they usually own their own home, they do not own the land upon which it sits. This puts them in a unstable situation for which they could lose their investment if they are not fully informed of their legal rights.
The ACLU of Minnesota is dismayed at this decision, which they believe unduly restricts park residents and APACs free speech rights. In the dissent opinion issued by the Minnesota Supreme Court, it states that "Uniprop's restrictions are unreasonable because they impeded the ability of APAC and organizations like it to communicate with residents about their rights as residents . . .To allow the owner of a manufactured home park to adopt a rule specifically for the purpose of restricting the ability of park residents to receive information about their rights effectively frustrates the purpose of section 327C.13" (the Minn statue which governs the rules and responsibilities of Manufactures home parks). The ACLU-MN agrees with this conclusion and thanks the dissenting justices for their opinion.
You can read the complete decision here.