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Supreme Court to Decide: Can You Yell "Mom" in a Crowded Mall?

THIS IS A FAKE STORY -- THIS IS NOT A TRUE STORY

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The Twin Cities Whistler: Top Story

Americans tend to view First Amendment rights as near absolute, but another exception may soon be created as the Supreme Court considers the case of MegaDale Inc. vs. Lisa Hvizdos.  The issue, say store owners, is that yelling "Mom" in a crowded shopping mall threatens their livelihood.

"I cannot tell you how many times this has happened," says Marshall Hudson, who owns a clothing store in MegaDale.  "I have a store full of women shopping, and you can just see that they are ready to buy.  One little voice goes off, and every mother in the store checks to see where their child is.  By the time they reassure themselves, they've forgotten what they were looking at, and I've lost another sale.  It has to stop!"

Hudson initiated the suit against Lisa Hvizdos when, during a Back to School sale in August 2000, Lisa cried out for her mother Martha.  The resulting disruption in sales, says Hudson, cost him thousands, and he sued Lisa.  "It was as damaging as if she had ripped a third of my inventory in half," says Hudson.  "She should have to compensate me for the damage."

In short, the future of one American institution is in the hands of another, say Mall owners who say that the Supreme Court should rule that stores can forbid children from yelling "mom" in a crowded mall.  As precedent, they cite the famous example of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, which the Supreme Court argued fell outside First Amendment protection in a famous majority decision written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 1919 case Schenk vs the United States.

An industry group -- Shopping Should Be Silent (ShShS) -- has filed a brief in support of MegaDale's case.  It notes that "Our studies verify that it is not only parents with children accompanying them who are affected.  The cry of a child strikes a deep chord, and even parents who are shopping alone tend to be distracted.  Even older adults whose children are now full-grown tend to stop what they are doing, because the instinct is deeply imprinted."

Because a child's cry is so disruptive, ShShS claims, such distracting calls are second only to shoplifting in terms of monetary losses to American businesses.  The ShShS brief concludes that "Businesses are, appropriately, allowed to take many steps to combat shoplifting.  We believe that MegaDale should be allowed countermeasures against this damaging practice."

Nonsense, argue the attorneys for Lisa Hvizdos.  They have tried to frame the case as one of a major corporation picking on a small child.  "You can yell 'fire' in a crowded theater if you think there really is a fire," explains attorney Felix Burger.  "To Lisa, and to all little children, when they want their mom or dad, they are desperate.  Maybe MegaDale doesn't care about the emotional needs of little children.  Maybe MegaDale thinks another couple bucks is more important than a scared child.  Maybe MegaDale has forgotten what it is like to be little, and we think the Supreme Court should remind them."

Lower courts have been split in their rulings, making the case's ultimate outcome tough to predict.  Legal experts say that the case would never have made it this far if little Lisa had had a real reason to distract her mother, and all the other parents in the store.  "The defendants have admitted that the cause of the cry was quite trivial," says University of Michigan law professor John Jay Black.  "Lisa had thought up a song, and she wanted to share it with her mother right away before she forgot it.  However, witnesses agree that Lisa's shout for her mother sounded so desperate that it attracted the attention of every parent in the store.  I think Lisa's case would be much, much stronger if the desperation in her voice was legitimate, given the circumstances."

The circumstances were legitimate, say Lisa's attorney, who has challenged a key decision of the Ninth Federal Court of Appeals.  The court refused to hear the song that Lisa had made up, claiming it was irrelevant.  But Felix Burger says that decision must be reversed by the Supreme Court.  "Look at the transcript from the original trial," he says, reading the song that Lisa made up: "I love my mommy, I love my mommy, I looooovvve my mommy.  She is the bestest mommy in the whole, wide world!  I love my mommy, the bestest mommy in the whole wide world!"

"If the Court allows me to present that song during arguments, this case is over," claims Burger.  "Even Scalia melts."