Oberholzer v. Galapo

Held that neighbors’ anti-racist signs, aimed at claimant homeowners’ property, did not intolerably intrude on homeowners’ substantial privacy interests, and thus Pennsylvania’s constitutional free-speech protections did not permit trial court to enjoin continued display of the signs. The mere fact that speech takes place in a residential neighborhood did not automatically implicate a residential privacy interest; the signs were exclusively on the neighbors’ property, did not mention the homeowners by name, and did not present non-speech nuisance; and the neighbors, who were Jewish, intended to address the homeowners and the broader community about racism and antisemitism as issues of public importance. The court stressed that the Pennsylvania constitution afforded greater free speech protections than the First Amendment and that persuasion on an issue of public importance was precisely the kind of speech that the right not only protects, but encourages.