Are open letters protected by freedom of speech? Any court precedents? I would like to know if there is legal precedent protecting the freedom of speech in distributing an open letter or something similar. A friend owns a unit in a condominium, and since day one she has been subjected to random fines and hostility from certain neighbors. The condominium is managed by a private company, and the manager finds every opportunity and every excuse to slap fines on her, for all kinds of random things that she didn't do. She tried and fought back by filing complaints with fair housing organizations, but it has had little effect. The management company retracted some fines but still shows express hate and hostility toward her and fines her whenever they can. My friend has requested a meeting with the HOA board many times in email to the manager, which have all been ignored or denied. Then an extremely discriminatory and hateful thing against her happened. With her access to the board blocked, she had no choice but to write an open letter to other residents, asking for their help, and leave the letters at their doors. A few weeks later the management company found out and slapped her with several other fines, claiming her act of distributing an open letter constituted a violation. (Funny thing is the section they cited in the Condominium Bylaw in regard to the violation doesn't even exist.) Are open letters protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? Are there other specific clauses on the federal and/or state level that are relevant in this case?
No. It is an often repeated misconception that "Freedom of Speech" means that no one can restrict speech ever. This is not the case. Let us look at the US Consitution's First Admendment, which contains the "Freedom of Speech" clause: Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press... (Emphasis mine) As one can see, the First Amendment only restricts government actions. (It also stops other branches of government from restricting speech, because those branches are innately weak with very few powers granted to them by the constitution; the majority of executive or judicial branches powers are granted to them by a law passed by Congress, and Congress cannot give a power to another party that they do not possess). A Home Owner Association (HOA) is not a government or government agency; it is a private organization (and it is not the same as the "private management company" that manages the condominium, which is probably in the employ of the HOA; which also means that emailing the manager is not emailing the HOA board). Their power stems from a contract, one that your friend signed when they bought the property (one of the conditions agreed to is that a member who sells or gifts their HOA-member property can only do so to someone who also agrees to the contract). That said, HOAs can be horribly abusive and many states have laws that restrict what kinds of rules and penalties can be applied by an HOA. But that is not a constitutional matter (at either the Federal or State level), nor a question of "Freedom of Speech", but rather a limitation on the kinds of behaviors that can be enforced by contract.
This can be effected without evidence or trial or a right to an appeal in front of an objective party. Not so. If a person is charged with a crime for violating such a code, (or refusing to leave when ordered under such a code) they could defend on the grounds that it is unreasonable, unauthorized, or violates that person's constitutional or statutory rights. Or, if a person has been ordered to leave, the person could comply and then seek an injunction forbidding future enforcement of the regulation. Such methods have been used in the past to challenge the lawfulness of administrative regulations. The Colorado code CRS 24-90-109. Powers and duties of board of trustees says that: (1) The board of trustees shall: (a) Adopt such bylaws, rules, and regulations for its own guidance and policies for the governance of the library as it deems expedient. ... (b) Have custody of all property of the library, including rooms or buildings constructed, leased, or set apart therefor; (c) Employ a director and, upon the director's recommendation, employ such other employees as may be necessary. The duties of the director shall include, but not limited to: (I) Implementing the policies adopted by the board of trustees pursuant to paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section; ... (III) Performing all other acts necessary for the orderly and efficient management and control of the library. This law seems to authorize libraries to adopt and enforce codes of conduct for persons using the library. This page from the CO State library development agency gives example policies that libraries are encouraged to model their policies on. In the section under &quot;Library Use/Behavior&quot; there are three example policies. All of these list various prohibited acts, which seem relatively reasonable to me. Two of the three include an explicit appeals process for serious violations. You do not indicate what sort of behavior you have encaged in for which the library may wish to ban you. In general, government facilities are allowed to make reasonable regulations for members of the public using those facilities, and it is not a violation of people's Constitutional rights to make and enforce such regulations. However, that depends highly on what the regulations are. A regulation limiting access by race would obviously be struck down. A regulation prohibiting shouting, even though it impacts speech, would be permitted as a content-neutral regulation of &quot;time, place and manner&quot;. In short it would depend very much on the specific regulation, and what rights it is alleged to violate.
Was/is it permissible for judges in the US to talk ex-parte like that? No. Ex parte interactions of that sort are not allowed. See, for instance, Disciplinary Counsel v. Bachman, 2020-Ohio-732 (Dec. 18, 2020) and Maze v. Judicial Conduct Commission, 2019-SC-0691-RR (Dec. 17, 2020). An example of less recent decision but with a reporter citation number is Comm'n on Judicial Performance v. Bozeman, 302 So.3d 1217 (2020). For situations of imminent risk of irreparable harm, procedural law provides for ex parte motions and ex parte petitions, such as this granted petition for Personal Protection Order. See M[ichigan]CR 3.7003(G). But the scenarios you depict fall short of the necessity for which ex parte provisions are intended. do the above scenes in the movies essentially portray judicial misconduct? Yes. A judge's house is inappropriate for communicating, let alone ex parte, his ruling (I am not knowledgeable of the films but my understanding of your description is that that judge made the ruling on the application). As for The Untouchables, any evidence of jurors' &amp; judges' conflict of interest and likely bias has to be filed in court and comply with procedural law so that all parties have an opportunity to litigate the matter.
Law does not have an all-encompassing syntax and structure that, if not followed, makes it null and void. If a reasonable person could determine that (in the example of the sign you have) you are required to get written permission from any or all of the Paulding County Commissioners, then the sign is enforceable. I honestly don't see anything wrong with the sign you are displaying, it is reasonably clear. If, for example the notice contains an ambiguity or unclear phrase, the &quot;spirit&quot; of the law or sign is upheld. If the sign had said something to the effect of &quot;No trespassing without permission&quot;. It doesn't say who you need permission from, but you can reasonably ascertain that you must have permission from somebody in control of the land. There is no line in the sand here. Often when a dispute in a contract comes up where it could be interpreted more than one way, it is often interpreted in favor of the person who did not write the contract. &quot;Offer ends October 30 or while supplies last&quot; Isn't really &quot;ill-phrased&quot; either. I assure you that those statements are vetted by highly paid lawyers from many jurisdictions. I'm not sure what &quot;nonsense&quot; you would be referring to in there. If the vendor runs out of promotional materials the promotion ends... If they had said &quot;free hats to the first 100 customers on December 31st&quot;, you can't show up as the 101st customer and demand a hat, nor could you show up on January 1st (even if there were not 100 customers the previous day) and demand one either.
Can the HOA compel payment? Yes, at least from the standpoint of unjust enrichment or quantum meruit. That is because the resident obtains some benefit(s) from the HOA's activity &amp; expenses, such as the maintenance of common areas and other items that advance the common good of the community. However, a drastic or arbitrary increase in invoices might not be enforceable, especially if these are unreasonable. The HOA would need to persuade in court that the resident accepted or would have knowingly and willfully accepted such drastic change. HOA bylaws: Are they enforceable absent a contract? If by bylaws you mean something other than bills, the question would depend on the substance &amp; scope of those bylaws as well as the HOA's/resident's jurisdiction. It is noteworthy that a written &amp; signed contract is oftentimes unnecessary. There is the notion of "implicit contract" to refer to rights and duties that can be inferred from the parties' conduct and the expectations that can be inferred therefrom. This notion of implicit contract is common in situations where there is no written document that reflects the parties' intent in the relation they willfully enter.
Banning you from the museum raises questions about your due process, equal protection, and First Amendment rights. Generally speaking, a person banned like this would be unlikely to collect any damages, but may be able to obtain injunctive relief to prevent the museum from enforcing its ban. Of course, it would depend on the reason for the ban and the procedures the museum went through in imposing the ban and permitting you to challenge it. In your case, though, the ban has already been lifted, so there's probably not much room for any kind of legal action. EDIT: Since there are several people contesting -- with no law to support them -- the validity of this answer, here's a case discussing the First Amendment implications of access to museums: As a limited public forum, there are certain First Amendment activities permitted on [National Civil War Museum] grounds and others that are not. For example, lectures or programs on a Civil War topic authorized by the museum and the public's attendance at these activities would be permitted uses, but activities concerning other topics (including the immorality of homosexual activity) would not. Diener v. Reed, 232 F. Supp. 2d 362, 385 (M.D. Pa. 2002), aff'd, 77 F. App'x 601 (3d Cir. 2003).
Michigan law say nothing about landlord entry, so whatever it says in the lease is what is allowed. Various sources like this comment on the lack of such statutory regulations. There does not appear to be any relevant case law for Michigan which impose restrictions on a landlord's right to access a rental. Since there is no statutory or case law restriction on landlord's right to access his property, landlord's agent would have the same right to access. That would mean that if the listing agent were authorized by the landlord to enter, then the agent could enter, and it would not be necessary for the landlord to accompany this agent whenever entry was needed. That does not mean that a "listing agent" that happens to work with a landlord has an independent right to enter the landlord's property. The same would go for repairmen. It is actually not clear to me whether there could be blanket permission for any and all with access to the lock box to enter, since pretty much any realtor can enter a house for sale, subject to whatever the stated limitations are, and they don't call the owner for each entry. I suspect that one would not have legal grounds for imposing a particular additional restriction on a landlord's right to access and permit access to the property, since there's no overriding statute, and restrictions on landlord access mainly derive from statutes.
To what degree are such emails admissible in court as evidence, and what weight do they carry? Your own statement, when offered by you as evidence, is hearsay, unless it comes within an exception to that rule. Recorded recollection might be one of the better exceptions. There is also a chance that you could get it in as a business record of the company if you were using a company email account and the company stores all of its email communications. The documents also sometimes come in to provide fair context for a conversation with a party-opponent's statements that are admissible. It appears that Canada does not follow the modern British rule (which repealed the hearsay rule in civil cases in 1995), which if it were available, would come in without any difficulty at all. But, Canada does have what it calls a "principled exception" (which is somewhat broader than the parallel U.S. residual hearsay exception) that is generally available if the document can be shown to be reliable and there is an unavailable witness, or if there proponent of the document can show that it is reliable and necessary for other reasons. Even if the document itself is not admissible since it is hearsay, you could still testify as to what the boss said from your own recollection, and then have your lawyer ask you why you are sure that this is what was said. You would answer that you contemporaneously wrote a confirming letter to the boss spelling out what was said and you reviewed it to refresh your recollection before testifying at the hearing or trial. These kinds of confirming letters are used quite frequently in business and employment litigation. And, in my experience, these statements tend to be surprisingly effective and persuasive, because, while they do not foreclose the possibility that the person writing it was lying or inaccurate in the confirming email account, it does rule out the possibility that you forgot exactly what was said, and you provided the boss with an opportunity to dispute you which the boss didn't feel an obligation to correct. If one party has a coherent account in confirming emails of what was said, and the other party is trying to remember what happened a year or two earlier without notes from the witness stand, the person with the coherent, documented account is almost always going to come across as more credible unless the other side can show that your confirming emails are not infrequently gross misrepresentations of what really occurred. (I've also dealt with witnesses like that now and then.)