A&A: How do I find court rulings against stores that block petitioners?

Q: I would like to find all the rulings against Target stores for blocking petitioning at their stores.

A: For cases involving Target stores that were filed in California state court, you could look at www.courtinfo.ca.gov, which lists each superior court in California, some of which have case dockets that are searchable online by party name.

For other states, many state courts are operated at the county level, and although there may be ways to search for cases by party name, you may have to search on a county by county basis (if an online searchable database is even available). For federal cases, you could search using a paid legal research website such as Westlaw or Lexis.

I ran a quick search on Westlaw for rulings nationwide involving Target stores, and came up with only the following where Target was a named party in the litigation:

Riemers v. Super Target of Grand Forks, Target Corp., 363 F.Supp.2d 1182 (D.N.D. 2005) (Individual denied permission to access privately owned retail and grocery store in order to collect signatures for political petition brought pro se action against store owner in state court, alleging violations of his First Amendment rights and his rights under the North Dakota Constitution. Court held that store was not a public forum, and therefore there was no violation of the First Amendment in denying plaintiff the right to collect signatures.).

Bryan Cave LLP is general counsel for the First Amendment Coalition and responds to FAC hotline inquiries. In responding to these inquiries, we can give general information regarding open government and speech issues but cannot provide specific legal advice or representation.