In the Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins case of 1979, a group of high school students were prohibited from setting up a table in the courtyard of a privately owned shopping center to collect signatures for a petition against United Nations' resolution. The students sued on First Amendment grounds and lost at trial but won on appeal at the California Supreme Court which held that they had free speech rights under the state constitution even though it was private property. The U.S Supreme Court upheld this decision stating that states have the power to provide broader free speech protections than those provided by federal law without violating any constitutional provisions. It ruled that while individuals do not have First Amendment rights on private property, states can grant these rights as long as owners are justly compensated for any potential loss caused due to such activities.

In the dissenting opinion for Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, Justice Powell and Justice Rehnquist argued that the California Supreme Court's decision infringed upon private property rights protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. They contended that forcing a privately owned shopping center to allow expressive activity against its will was an unjustifiable intrusion on property owners' rights. The justices believed this ruling essentially transformed private spaces into public ones without just compensation, which they viewed as a violation of constitutional protections against such actions. Furthermore, they expressed concern about potential implications for other types of private properties beyond shopping centers if similar rulings were made in future cases.