326 U.S. 501 (1946)
Chickasaw, Alabama, is a suburb of Mobile owned entirely by the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation.1 The property includes residential buildings, streets, a sewage system and disposal plant, and a business block containing stores and a United States post office.2 A deputy sheriff of Mobile County, paid by the corporation, serves as the town policeman.3
The business block and its sidewalks serve as a regular shopping center for residents and the public.4 Company-owned roads connect to a nearby four-lane public highway.5 Nothing distinguishes the area from any other town except corporate title.6
Grace Marsh, a Jehovah’s Witness, entered the sidewalk in front of the business block near the post office and began distributing religious literature.7 The corporation had posted notices declaring the property private and prohibiting street vendors, agents, or solicitation of any kind without written permission.8 Marsh was warned that distribution required a permit, was told no permit would be issued, and was asked to leave.9 She refused and was arrested by the company-paid deputy.10
Marsh was charged in state court with violating Title 14, § 426 of the 1940 Alabama Code, which makes it a crime to enter or remain on the premises of another after having been warned not to do so.11 She was convicted.12 The Alabama Court of Appeals affirmed at 21 So. 2d 558, holding the statute constitutional as applied because title remained in the corporation and public use had not created an irrevocable dedication under Alabama law.13 The Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari at 246 Ala. 539, 21 So. 2d 564.14 The case reached the United States Supreme Court on appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 344(a).15
Many people across the United States live in company-owned towns, particularly in industries such as bituminous coal mining where, in the period 1922–1923, roughly half of miners resided in employer-owned housing.16
Whether a State, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, can impose criminal punishment on a person who undertakes to distribute religious literature on the premises of a company-owned town contrary to the wishes of the town’s management?17
Ownership does not always mean absolute dominion. The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.18 A state statute enforcing a company town's restriction on distribution of religious literature violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.19
No. The corporation has opened its property for public use as a town and shopping center that functions identically to any other American town.2021 The state cannot enforce the criminal trespass statute to abridge Marsh's freedom of press and religion on the publicly accessible sidewalk.22 The Alabama courts' focus on corporate title does not override the federal constitutional protections that circumscribe the owner's rights once property is opened to the public.23
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Frankfurter concurred in the result. So long as the views which prevailed in Jones v. Opelika express the law of the Constitution, he found no legal significance in the fact that a town in which the Constitutional freedoms of religion and speech are invoked happens to be company-owned. A company-owned town is a town in its community aspects.26 These community aspects are decisive in adjusting the clash of freedoms which the Bill of Rights was designed to resolve.27
Title to property as defined by State law controls property relations but cannot control issues of civil liberties.28 Justice Frankfurter agreed with the opinion of the Court except for the portion relying on arguments drawn from the restrictions which the Commerce Clause imposes on State regulation of commerce.29
Joined by Chief Justice And Justice Burton
Justice Reed dissented on the ground that this decision establishes a novel principle, allowing one to remain on private property against the will of the owner so long as the objection is to the exercise of religious views.30 The rights of the owner are not outweighed by the interests of the trespasser even in behalf of religion.31 Alabama's trespass statute should apply to protect the private property.32
Marsh could have distributed literature on the nearby public highway without becoming a trespasser.33