Staub v. City of Baxley

The City of Baxley, Georgia (plaintiff), had an ordinance requiring a permit before soliciting members for an organization. Rose Staub (defendant), a garment-workers-union employee, solicited members without a permit and was convicted and fined. She had challenged the ordinance as a whole under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but Georgia's court of appeals refused to reach the merits, citing a state procedural rule requiring challenges to specific sections of an ordinance rather than the ordinance as a whole. The Georgia Supreme Court denied review, and Staub appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.