Q: The manager of an apartment complex where a murder has occurred wants to deny our reporters access to tenants. We want to knock on doors and ask renters if they will be interviewed. Can he prevent us from doing this? Is there a citation?
A: It has long been the law in California that it is the person who actually occupies the premises, rather than the owner or property manager, who has the right to decide who can come on the property. Thus in Dwyer v. Carroll, 84 Cal. 298 (1890), the California Supreme Court upheld the right of a tenant to sue the landlord for entering the tenant’s apartment without permission.
A corollary to this rule is that “the landlord has no cause of action to prevent a trespass because, under the law of landlord tenant relations, the landlord surrenders possession.” Friends of the Trails v. Blasius, 78 Cal. App. 4th 810, 830 (2000).
Consequently, a journalist invited onto the premises by a tenant is not liable for trespass even if the landlord does not want the journalist there. In Lal v. CBS, 551 F. Supp. 356 (E.D. Pa. 1982), aff’d, 726 F.2d 97 (3d Cir. 1984), a federal court held that journalists could not be sued by the landlord for entering an apartment with the consent of a tenant and the Court of Appeal affirmed.
The logic of these cases is that a journalist cannot be prevented from entering the premises to knock on doors to ask permission of the tenants to talk, but I’m not aware of a case saying exactly that. However, the US Supreme Court held three years ago that the First Amendment prevents a city from preventing door-to-door advocacy without permission of the city. Watchtower Bible and Tract Soc’y v. Village of Stratton, 526 U.S. 150 (2002). While the First Amendment does not apply to action by private landowners, the California equivalent of the First Amendment — in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution — has been held by the California Supreme Court to prevent private landowners from denying access to the common areas of shopping malls for First Amendment-type activity. Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Ctr., 23 Cal. 3d 899 (1979).
If you put all these cases together, I think KGET-TV would have a potential claim against the landlord (or his/her agent, the property manager) for an injunction requiring the landlord to let you in. I realize that you do not want to sue, but this might get the property manager’s attention.