Hustler Magazine Inc. v. Falwell

The Court applied the actual malice standard set out in New York Times v. Sullivan, which requires that a false statement must be published with knowledge of or reckless disregard for the truth. It found the parody to be a statement of opinion, protected by the First Amendment.

The November 1983 issue of Hustler magazine featured a parody of an advertisement for Campari liquor. The layout used a caricature of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, a well-known minister and conservative political activist, which was titled "Jerry Falwell talks about his first time," a take-off on the Campari ad campaign. The text of the advertisement implied that Falwell's first sexual experience was a drunken rendezvous with his mother in an outhouse. The ad also presented Falwell as a hypocrite, who preached only when drunk. A small print statement informed the reader that this was an "ad parody-not to be taken seriously" and the table of contents also listed it as a parody.

Falwell sued Hustler and its publisher, Larry Flynt, for invasion of privacy, libel, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The trial court rejected the privacy allegation, but allowed the jury to decide the libel and emotional distress claims. The jury found that the parody was not reasonably believable and ruled that the magazine had therefore not libeled Falwell. However, it ruled that Falwell had suffered emotional distress, and awarded him $100,000 for compensatory (actual) damages and $100,000 in punitive damages.

Hustler and Flynt appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which upheld the jury verdict. The Fourth Circuit found that while actual malice was required for a libel case, a lesser standard was allowed for emotional distress claims. It said the question was whether the ad "was sufficiently outrageous to constitute intentional infliction of emotional distress," regardless of whether it was an opinion. The Supreme Court granted review of the case.

The High Court disagreed with the appeals court, finding that the expression of opinions on matters of public interests was of "fundamental importance" under the First Amendment. It compared the parody to political cartoons, though noting as an aside that it was "a distant cousin . . . and a rather poor relation at that." However, quoting its 1978 decision in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, the Court said: "[T]he fact that society may find speech offensive is not a sufficient reason for suppressing it. Indeed, if it is the speaker's opinion that gives offense, that is a reason for according it constitutional protection."

The Court strongly rejected arguments that the particular outrageousness of the parody should affect its protection under the First Amendment. The intent to cause emotional distress may be a serious injury in other situations, the Court said, but it would chill public debate to allow recovery for it in situations involving public discourse. Quoting from its 1964 decision in Garrison v. Louisiana, the Court declared, "Debate on public issues will not be uninhibited if the speaker must run the risk that it will be proved in court that he spoke out of hatred; even if he did speak out of hatred, utterances honestly believed contribute to the free interchange of ideas and the ascertainment of truth."

The Court noted that in the 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan it held that a speaker cannot be held liable for even a false statement about a public figure unless that statement was made "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." The Sullivan case severely limited the rights of public figures under libel and slander laws, because of the importance of the First Amendment. However, as the Court noted, the jury in this case found that the parody was clearly not intended to be taken as fact. For that reason, the publisher would not be liable for making knowingly false statements.