Appellant
Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., et al.
Appellee
Maurice S. Hepps, et al.
Petitioner's Claim
That, due to First Amendment freedom of the press protections, a private individual in cases of public interest is responsible to prove accusations of criminal activity printed by a newspaper were false to win a defamation award.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
David H. Marion
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Ronald H. Surkin
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Sandra Day O'Connor (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
21 April 1986
Decision
Reversed the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and found that for a private individual to establish defamation by the press they are required to prove untruthfulness of the news articles.
Significance
The Supreme Court found that for topics of public interest First Amendment protections of the press outweigh libel common law even in cases involving private citizens. The private individual, not the press, must prove the falsenessof alleged smear statements. The finding held that private individuals and public personalities face the same rigorous standards for winning defamation suits against the press. Due to the continual altering of libel law by the Court since the 1960s, an individual's ability to legally protect their reputation has been greatly limited leading toward political efforts to substantiallyrestructure libel law. This case was one of the more important procedural rulings by the Court favoring the news media in defamation suits.
General Programming, Inc. (GPI) franchised a chain of stores in the Philadelphia area known as "Thrifty" specializing in beer, soft drink, and snacks sales. Maurice S. Hepps was GPI's principal stockholder. Between May of 1975 andMay of 1976, the Philadelphia Inquirer, owned by Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., published a series of five articles linking Hepps and GPI to organized crime. The articles claimed GPI used criminal associations to influence the Pennsylvania legislature and the State Liquor Control Board. Hepps filed suit in a state court against Philadelphia Newspapers claiming their reputations were harmed.
Freedom to Defame
Defamation is the smearing of someone's reputation either by speaking (slander) or by writing (libel). Common law normally assumes statements determined defamatory through malice (hateful intent) or "careless indifference" are false until the speaker proves them truthful. No simple guidelines identifying what constitutes defamation exist due largely to infinite possibilities. Consequently, the Supreme Court's interpretation of how libel law applies to private individuals has been inconsistent with sharply divided votes.
The Supreme Court has struggled greatly over the issue of media responsibility in reporting the truth. Libel law did not become a subject under Court scrutiny until 1964. In the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) case the Court established that a public person (meaning actors, sports figures,government officials, and politicians) must prove the media acted with malice, not just using false information, to win a libel case. The Court identified an intense "national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open" including "sharp attacks." This test became known as the "actual malice standard" and brought civil libellaw under constitutional protection. In Time, Inc. v. Hill (1967) theCourt extended the actual malice standard to private citizens when incidentally involved as victims in crimes of public interest.
With some change in justices on the bench, the Court later reversed its direction. The Court ruled in Gertz v. Welch (1974) that the actual malicestandard did not always apply when a private citizen was suing the media fordefamation. A distinction between public and private parties was based on a private citizen's lesser access to media sources for response, and that a private citizen does not normally seek public attention. The Court also determined that press freedom should be weighed against public interest when private citizens were the focus of the press. But the states were left to individuallydefine how to balance concerns of private citizen defamation with that of press censorship.
Pennsylvania state law required a private individual alleging defamation by the press to prove carelessness or malice, however, it was the press responsibility to prove truthfulness of a defamatory statement. In presenting arguments, Hepps offered considerable testimony that the Inquirer's statementswere false leaving the Inquirer to prove their truthfulness. In rebuttal, the Inquirer took advantage of Pennsylvania's "shield law" on several occasions to avoid revealing information sources. Unexpectedly, the court decided the state defamation law requiring the Inquirer to prove truthfulness of its statements was unconstitutional and instructed the jury thatHepps had responsibility to prove the published statements false. The jury decided in favor of Philadelphia Newspapers.
Hepps appealed the verdict and court proceedings to the Pennsylvania SupremeCourt. In 1982 the court, ruling in his favor, determined that Hepps only needed to prove malice by the press to decide the defamation question and that proving truthfulness was not necessary. The court added that requiring the publisher to prove truthfulness as required in the Pennsylvania state law "did not unconstitutionally inhibit free debate" as the lower court had found. Thecase was sent back for retrial. The U.S. Supreme Court then assumed the case.
Chilling Effect
The Court was once again asked "to define the proper (balance) between the law of defamation and the freedoms of speech and press protected by the First Amendment." The Court first determined this case involved a private citizen, but topics of public interest. Therefore, based on precedence of the New York Times decision, constitutional rule prevailed over common law in thiscase. Proving truthfulness was not the publisher's responsibility. Justice O'Connor, writing for the 5-4 majority, found that "where a newspaper publishesspeech of public concern, a private-figure plaintiff cannot recover damageswithout also showing that the statements at issue are false." When truth is uncertain, as may often be the case, the Constitution requires favoring the protection of speech. O'Connor wrote, "the common-law presumption that defamatory speech is false cannot" apply. In addition, the Pennsylvania shield law places even a greater burden on Hepps to prove defamation and falseness becausethe Inquirer's sources could not be identified or specifically questioned. In concurrence, Justice Brennan noted that the Constitution directly restricts only government actions limiting free speech. However, such restrictions must apply to private citizens as well when matters of public interest are involved. Burger wrote the press should not fear prosecution from private citizens in matters of public interest. Such fear serves as a "chilling effect" on free speech, meaning the press might be fearful of printing important public information if they were not absolutely sure it was truthful. A privatecitizen must clearly prove statements are false before recovering damages from the media for defamation. O'Connor noted a likely consequence of this strict standard set by Hepps was that some false statements about private individuals may receive protection by the Constitution in order to protect speech providing important information to the public.
Private Citizens and Public Figures
Justice Stevens, joined in dissent by Chief Justice Burger and Justices Whiteand Rehnquist, sharply disagreed that private citizens should be treated thesame as public and governmental figures. They should not be required to prove defamatory statements are also false. Stevens wrote the media should be clearly held responsible for false or irresponsible statements and the common defamation law of Pennsylvania should prevail. In many situations, a private citizen would not be able to disprove accusations about his past are false dueto loss of records, death of possible witnesses, or other developments through time. Stevens believed the decision was a blatant misuse of previous rulings by equating public figure cases to those involving private citizens. In fact, he pointed out that in Gertz the Court actually considered and rejected the notion that private citizens must the bear the same responsibilitiesfor proving truthfulness of statements as public persons.
By placing so little importance on protecting individual reputation, Stevenslamented the only victors in the decision would be publishers "who act negligently or maliciously." Prevention of false information serves an important public purpose as the McCarthy era of the 1950s demonstrated when government officials and the press falsely accused citizens of communist connections. Stevens charged the Court in essence granted the press a constitutional license to defame through character assassination. He concluded, "deliberate, malicious character assassination is not protected by the First Amendment" but truthful statements are.
Impact
Since 1964 the Supreme Court dramatically revised common libel law. The Courtregularly rejected the common law balancing between First Amendment speech protections and privacy in favor of rigidly protecting the press. This decision, further expanded in Hustler Magazine Inc. v. Falwell (1988), had far reaching implications. Even where defamatory statements are false, a private individual can rarely win damages from the media if the topic is of publicinterest as liberally interpreted by the courts.
The increasingly conservative social climate of the 1980s and 1990s marked anera of government placing greater responsibility on individuals and institutions to conduct themselves properly. Basic court rules applied to the press were not to knowingly print false information, to provide an open discussion on public issues, and to act with reasonable care. But still no single standard was formally established for media responsibility in telling the truth.
Due to the substantial changes in libel law introduced by the Supreme Court,many became dissatisfied with the status of libel law in general. Libel law in the 1990s provided little protection for individuals' reputations, yet leftthe press open to occasional large damage awards that were not overturned inappeals courts. As a result, libel cases were still considered the single largest threat in the 1990s to press freedom. The high expense of legal defensealone posed a "chilling effect" on press freedom, if not actual adverse court rulings.
Libel law reform received considerable attention beginning in the 1960s. Someargued for abolishing libel law altogether, claiming history showed privatecitizens rarely suffered actual damage. Public opinion would thus serve as the judge of truth rather than the courts. Proponents for revising rather thanabolishing libel law claimed some form of reputation protection is importantfor a civilized society. Justice Potter Stewart wrote in the 1966 case of Rosenblatt v. Baer, "The right of a man to the protection of his own reputation from unjustified invasion . . . [is] our basic concept of the essential dignity and worth of every human being--a concept at the root of any decentsystem of ordered liberty." Legislative solutions, including the proposed Uniform Defamation Act in the early 1990s, gained little organized support. Thepress institution provided organized opposition despite some proposals limiting monetary damage payments. Many reform efforts attempted to replace the requirement of proving malice with a system involving public retractions or a quicker system of judging truthfulness. In the meantime, the public gained greater appreciation of the contention between press freedom and defamation worries in accepting that some false statements may receive protection from the First Amendment to safeguard "the greater marketplace of ideas."
Related Cases
Shield Laws
Shield laws protect journalists from revealing sources of their information.The intent is to extend this privilege to journalists as a means of supporting a vital press in the United States. The first state enacting such a law wasMaryland, in 1898. Half of the states had adopted similar laws by 1973. In 1975, Congress passed the Federal Rule of Evidence 501, which qualifies the privilege granted to journalists under state laws.
Shield laws can create controversies at times. Seeking to protect his or hersources, an issue may arise if a journalist is subpoenaed by a grand jury seeking testimony. The First Amendment rights guarantee free press, and shield laws may afford additional protection not to reveal sources. Conflicts occur between a journalist's right not to reveal sources and the government's rightto information that relates to criminal activity. The U.S. Supreme Court hasruled that reporters must answer questions put forth by a grand jury. The First Amendment provides journalists no right to exception from testifying. In cases like this, "public interest" has priority.
Sources
West's Encyclopedia of American Law, Vol 2. New York: West Publishing,1998.
Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., et al.
Appellee
Maurice S. Hepps, et al.
Petitioner's Claim
That, due to First Amendment freedom of the press protections, a private individual in cases of public interest is responsible to prove accusations of criminal activity printed by a newspaper were false to win a defamation award.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
David H. Marion
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Ronald H. Surkin
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Sandra Day O'Connor (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
21 April 1986
Decision
Reversed the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and found that for a private individual to establish defamation by the press they are required to prove untruthfulness of the news articles.
Significance
The Supreme Court found that for topics of public interest First Amendment protections of the press outweigh libel common law even in cases involving private citizens. The private individual, not the press, must prove the falsenessof alleged smear statements. The finding held that private individuals and public personalities face the same rigorous standards for winning defamation suits against the press. Due to the continual altering of libel law by the Court since the 1960s, an individual's ability to legally protect their reputation has been greatly limited leading toward political efforts to substantiallyrestructure libel law. This case was one of the more important procedural rulings by the Court favoring the news media in defamation suits.
General Programming, Inc. (GPI) franchised a chain of stores in the Philadelphia area known as "Thrifty" specializing in beer, soft drink, and snacks sales. Maurice S. Hepps was GPI's principal stockholder. Between May of 1975 andMay of 1976, the Philadelphia Inquirer, owned by Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., published a series of five articles linking Hepps and GPI to organized crime. The articles claimed GPI used criminal associations to influence the Pennsylvania legislature and the State Liquor Control Board. Hepps filed suit in a state court against Philadelphia Newspapers claiming their reputations were harmed.
Freedom to Defame
Defamation is the smearing of someone's reputation either by speaking (slander) or by writing (libel). Common law normally assumes statements determined defamatory through malice (hateful intent) or "careless indifference" are false until the speaker proves them truthful. No simple guidelines identifying what constitutes defamation exist due largely to infinite possibilities. Consequently, the Supreme Court's interpretation of how libel law applies to private individuals has been inconsistent with sharply divided votes.
The Supreme Court has struggled greatly over the issue of media responsibility in reporting the truth. Libel law did not become a subject under Court scrutiny until 1964. In the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) case the Court established that a public person (meaning actors, sports figures,government officials, and politicians) must prove the media acted with malice, not just using false information, to win a libel case. The Court identified an intense "national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open" including "sharp attacks." This test became known as the "actual malice standard" and brought civil libellaw under constitutional protection. In Time, Inc. v. Hill (1967) theCourt extended the actual malice standard to private citizens when incidentally involved as victims in crimes of public interest.
With some change in justices on the bench, the Court later reversed its direction. The Court ruled in Gertz v. Welch (1974) that the actual malicestandard did not always apply when a private citizen was suing the media fordefamation. A distinction between public and private parties was based on a private citizen's lesser access to media sources for response, and that a private citizen does not normally seek public attention. The Court also determined that press freedom should be weighed against public interest when private citizens were the focus of the press. But the states were left to individuallydefine how to balance concerns of private citizen defamation with that of press censorship.
Pennsylvania state law required a private individual alleging defamation by the press to prove carelessness or malice, however, it was the press responsibility to prove truthfulness of a defamatory statement. In presenting arguments, Hepps offered considerable testimony that the Inquirer's statementswere false leaving the Inquirer to prove their truthfulness. In rebuttal, the Inquirer took advantage of Pennsylvania's "shield law" on several occasions to avoid revealing information sources. Unexpectedly, the court decided the state defamation law requiring the Inquirer to prove truthfulness of its statements was unconstitutional and instructed the jury thatHepps had responsibility to prove the published statements false. The jury decided in favor of Philadelphia Newspapers.
Hepps appealed the verdict and court proceedings to the Pennsylvania SupremeCourt. In 1982 the court, ruling in his favor, determined that Hepps only needed to prove malice by the press to decide the defamation question and that proving truthfulness was not necessary. The court added that requiring the publisher to prove truthfulness as required in the Pennsylvania state law "did not unconstitutionally inhibit free debate" as the lower court had found. Thecase was sent back for retrial. The U.S. Supreme Court then assumed the case.
Chilling Effect
The Court was once again asked "to define the proper (balance) between the law of defamation and the freedoms of speech and press protected by the First Amendment." The Court first determined this case involved a private citizen, but topics of public interest. Therefore, based on precedence of the New York Times decision, constitutional rule prevailed over common law in thiscase. Proving truthfulness was not the publisher's responsibility. Justice O'Connor, writing for the 5-4 majority, found that "where a newspaper publishesspeech of public concern, a private-figure plaintiff cannot recover damageswithout also showing that the statements at issue are false." When truth is uncertain, as may often be the case, the Constitution requires favoring the protection of speech. O'Connor wrote, "the common-law presumption that defamatory speech is false cannot" apply. In addition, the Pennsylvania shield law places even a greater burden on Hepps to prove defamation and falseness becausethe Inquirer's sources could not be identified or specifically questioned. In concurrence, Justice Brennan noted that the Constitution directly restricts only government actions limiting free speech. However, such restrictions must apply to private citizens as well when matters of public interest are involved. Burger wrote the press should not fear prosecution from private citizens in matters of public interest. Such fear serves as a "chilling effect" on free speech, meaning the press might be fearful of printing important public information if they were not absolutely sure it was truthful. A privatecitizen must clearly prove statements are false before recovering damages from the media for defamation. O'Connor noted a likely consequence of this strict standard set by Hepps was that some false statements about private individuals may receive protection by the Constitution in order to protect speech providing important information to the public.
Private Citizens and Public Figures
Justice Stevens, joined in dissent by Chief Justice Burger and Justices Whiteand Rehnquist, sharply disagreed that private citizens should be treated thesame as public and governmental figures. They should not be required to prove defamatory statements are also false. Stevens wrote the media should be clearly held responsible for false or irresponsible statements and the common defamation law of Pennsylvania should prevail. In many situations, a private citizen would not be able to disprove accusations about his past are false dueto loss of records, death of possible witnesses, or other developments through time. Stevens believed the decision was a blatant misuse of previous rulings by equating public figure cases to those involving private citizens. In fact, he pointed out that in Gertz the Court actually considered and rejected the notion that private citizens must the bear the same responsibilitiesfor proving truthfulness of statements as public persons.
By placing so little importance on protecting individual reputation, Stevenslamented the only victors in the decision would be publishers "who act negligently or maliciously." Prevention of false information serves an important public purpose as the McCarthy era of the 1950s demonstrated when government officials and the press falsely accused citizens of communist connections. Stevens charged the Court in essence granted the press a constitutional license to defame through character assassination. He concluded, "deliberate, malicious character assassination is not protected by the First Amendment" but truthful statements are.
Impact
Since 1964 the Supreme Court dramatically revised common libel law. The Courtregularly rejected the common law balancing between First Amendment speech protections and privacy in favor of rigidly protecting the press. This decision, further expanded in Hustler Magazine Inc. v. Falwell (1988), had far reaching implications. Even where defamatory statements are false, a private individual can rarely win damages from the media if the topic is of publicinterest as liberally interpreted by the courts.
The increasingly conservative social climate of the 1980s and 1990s marked anera of government placing greater responsibility on individuals and institutions to conduct themselves properly. Basic court rules applied to the press were not to knowingly print false information, to provide an open discussion on public issues, and to act with reasonable care. But still no single standard was formally established for media responsibility in telling the truth.
Due to the substantial changes in libel law introduced by the Supreme Court,many became dissatisfied with the status of libel law in general. Libel law in the 1990s provided little protection for individuals' reputations, yet leftthe press open to occasional large damage awards that were not overturned inappeals courts. As a result, libel cases were still considered the single largest threat in the 1990s to press freedom. The high expense of legal defensealone posed a "chilling effect" on press freedom, if not actual adverse court rulings.
Libel law reform received considerable attention beginning in the 1960s. Someargued for abolishing libel law altogether, claiming history showed privatecitizens rarely suffered actual damage. Public opinion would thus serve as the judge of truth rather than the courts. Proponents for revising rather thanabolishing libel law claimed some form of reputation protection is importantfor a civilized society. Justice Potter Stewart wrote in the 1966 case of Rosenblatt v. Baer, "The right of a man to the protection of his own reputation from unjustified invasion . . . [is] our basic concept of the essential dignity and worth of every human being--a concept at the root of any decentsystem of ordered liberty." Legislative solutions, including the proposed Uniform Defamation Act in the early 1990s, gained little organized support. Thepress institution provided organized opposition despite some proposals limiting monetary damage payments. Many reform efforts attempted to replace the requirement of proving malice with a system involving public retractions or a quicker system of judging truthfulness. In the meantime, the public gained greater appreciation of the contention between press freedom and defamation worries in accepting that some false statements may receive protection from the First Amendment to safeguard "the greater marketplace of ideas."
Related Cases
- NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963).
- New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964).
- Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U.S. 75 (1966).
- Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374 (1967).
- Gertz v. Welch, 418 U.S. 323 (1974).
- Hustler Magazine Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988).
Shield Laws
Shield laws protect journalists from revealing sources of their information.The intent is to extend this privilege to journalists as a means of supporting a vital press in the United States. The first state enacting such a law wasMaryland, in 1898. Half of the states had adopted similar laws by 1973. In 1975, Congress passed the Federal Rule of Evidence 501, which qualifies the privilege granted to journalists under state laws.
Shield laws can create controversies at times. Seeking to protect his or hersources, an issue may arise if a journalist is subpoenaed by a grand jury seeking testimony. The First Amendment rights guarantee free press, and shield laws may afford additional protection not to reveal sources. Conflicts occur between a journalist's right not to reveal sources and the government's rightto information that relates to criminal activity. The U.S. Supreme Court hasruled that reporters must answer questions put forth by a grand jury. The First Amendment provides journalists no right to exception from testifying. In cases like this, "public interest" has priority.
Sources
West's Encyclopedia of American Law, Vol 2. New York: West Publishing,1998.
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