Reilly v. City of Harrisburg

Buffer zones are limited, fixed areas surrounding the entrance of a building designed to protect patients and facility employees from harassment, obstruction, and potential violence.

In 2012, Harrisburg City Council unanimously passed an ordinance called “Interference with Access to Health Care Facilities” after continuous reports of harassment, obstruction and conflict outside a Planned Parenthood facility.

Under the ordinance, it is illegal for anyone other than police or emergency personnel performing official functions and facility employees helping patients enter or exit the building to “knowingly congregate, patrol, picket or demonstrate in a zone extending 20 feet from any portion of an entrance to, exit from, or driveway of a health care facility.”

In 2016, protester-plaintiffs sued the city alleging the buffer zone prevents them from engaging in what they euphemistically refer to as non-consensual “sidewalk counseling” of patients coming and going from the facility.

In August 2018, the Honorable Sylvia H. Rambo of the U.S. District Court of the Middle District of Pennsylvania issued an opinion asserting the City of Harrisburg placed reasonable and constitutional limits on the free speech rights of protesters at certain locations within its municipal limits, and denied a preliminary injunction.