Landmark Media Law Cases: NYT v. Sullivan, Gertz v. Welch, Milkovich v. Lorain Journal, Ti, Quizzes of Mass Communication

Download Landmark Media Law Cases: NYT v. Sullivan, Gertz v. Welch, Milkovich v. Lorain Journal, Ti and more Quizzes Mass Communication in PDF only on Docsity! TERM 1 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan DEFINITION 1 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964),[1] was a United States Supreme Court case which established the actual malice standard which has to be met before press reports about public officials or public figures can be considered to be defamation and libel; and hence allowed free reporting of the civil rights campaigns in the southern United States. It is one of the key decisions supporting the freedom of the press. The actual malice standard requires that the plaintiff in a defamation or libel case prove that the publisher of the statement in question knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Because of the extremely high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and the difficulty in proving essentially what is inside a person's head, such caseswhen they involve public figuresrarely prevail. Before this decision there were nearly US$300 million in libel actions outstanding against news organizations from the Southern states and these had caused many publications to exercise great caution when reporting on civil rights, for fear that they might be held accountable for libel. After The New York Times prevailed in this case, news organizations were free to report the widespread disorder and civil rights infringements. The Times maintained that the case against it was brought to intimidate news organizations and prevent them from reporting illegal actions of public employees in the South as they attempted to continue to support segregation. On March 29, 1960, the New York Times carried a full-page advertisement titled "Heed Their Rising Voices", which solicited funds to defend Martin Luther King, Jr. against an Alabama perjury indictment. The advertisement described actions against civil rights protesters, some of them inaccurately, some of which involved the police force of Montgomery, Alabama. Although the Montgomery Public Safety commissioner, L. B. Sullivan, was not named in the advertisement, the inaccurate criticism of the actions by the police were considered as defamation against him as well by virtue of his position and duty to supervise the police department. Alabama law denied a public officer recovery of punitive damages in a libel action brought on account of a publication concerning their official conduct unless they first make a written demand for a public retraction and the defendant fails or refuses to comply, so Sullivan sent such a request. The Times did not publish a retraction in response to the demand. Instead it wrote a letter stating, among other things, that "we ... are somewhat puzzled as to how you think the statements in any way reflect on you," and "you might, if you desire, let us know in what respect you claim that the statements in the advertisement reflect on you". Sullivan did not respond but instead filed this suit a few days later. He also sued four black ministers mentioned in the ad, specifically Ralph Abernathy, S.S. Seay, Sr., Fred Shuttlesworth, and Joseph Lowery. Sullivan won $500,000 in an Alabama court judgment. The Times did, however, subsequently publish a retraction of the advertisement upon the demand of Governor John Patterson of Alabama, who asserted that the publication charged him with "grave misconduct and ... improper actions and omissions as Governor of Alabama and ex-officio chairman of the State Board of Education of Alabama." When asked to explain why there had been a retraction for the Governor but not for Sullivan, the Secretary of the Times testified: "We did that because we didn't want anything that was published by the Times to be a reflection on the State of Alabama and the Governor was, as far as we could see, the embodiment of the State of Alabama and the proper representative of the state and, furthermore, we had by that time learned more of the actual facts which the ad purported to recite and, finally, the ad did refer to the action of the state authorities and the Board of Education presumably of which the Governor is the ex-officio chairman...." On the other hand, he testified that he did not think that "any of the language in there referred to Mr. Sullivan." TERM 2 Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. DEFINITION 2 Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323 (1974)[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States established the standard of First Amendment protection against defamation claims brought by private individuals. The Court held that, so long as they do not impose liability without fault, states are free to establish their own standards of liability for defamatory statements made about private individuals. However, the Court also ruled that if the state standard is lower than actual malice, the standard applying to public figures, then only actual damages may be awarded. The consequence is that strict liability for defamation is unconstitutional in the United States; the plaintiff must be able to show that the defendant acted negligently or with an even higher level of mens rea. In many other common law countries, strict liability for defamation is still the rule. In 1968 a Chicago police officer named Richard Nuccio shot and killed a young man. After the officer was convicted of second-degree murder, the victim's family retained a local lawyer named Elmer Gertz to represent them in a civil action against the officer. A year later, American Opinion, a publication of the John Birch Society, ran a series of articles alleging the existence of a Communist conspiracy to discredit local police agencies and thus facilitate their replacement by a single national force that could more effectively implement the dictatorship they planned to impose on the country. One of those touched on the Nuccio case, claiming that the officer had been framed at his criminal trial and making strong allegations about Gertz. The Supreme Court decided the case in a 5-4 majority opinion delivered by Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., with a separate concurrence by Harry Blackmun. All four dissenting justices filed separate opinions. TERM 3 Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. DEFINITION 3 Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case that rejected the argument that a separate opinion privilege existed against libel. It was seen by legal commentators as the end of an era that began with New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and continued with Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., in which the Court clarified and greatly expanded the range and scope of what could be said in the press without fear of litigation. The case took a long time to come before the Court, which twice declined to hear it. When it finally did, the justices suggested they would clarify once and for all the extent to which opinions could be expressed without fear of being held libelous. The actual decision, however, was regarded as having confused the issue somewhat instead. Several state courts have responded by recognizing an opinion privilege in some way in their own jurisprudence. On February 8, 1974, a key high school wrestling match between teams from the Cleveland suburbs of Maple Heights and Mentor, fierce rivals at the time, degenerated into a brawl in which first the Maple Heights team, then its fans, attacked the Mentor squad. Several members were hospitalized as a result. Many present believed that Mike Milkovich, then the Maple Heights High School coach, had played no small part in causing the brawl by publicly criticizing decisions made by referees and inciting the crowd. At a hearing shortly afterwards, the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) put the school on probation for a year and ruled Maple Heights ineligible for the next year's state tournament. Several wrestlers and their parents filed suit in the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin County, where cases against the state are commonly heard. Petitioners argued that OHSAA had denied them due process. After a hearing that November in which both Milkovich and the school district's superintendent, H. Donald Scott, testified again, the court granted a temporary injunction against OHSAA's ruling. The following day, Ted Diadiun, a sportswriter and columnist for the News Herald, Mentor's daily newspaper, wrote about the decision. He had been at the original wrestling match and the OHSAA hearing but not at the court hearing. He did, however, quote OHSAA commissioner Harold Meyer as saying that "some of the stories told to the judge sounded pretty darned unfamiliar.... It certainly sounded different from what they told us" but without citing any specific examples. On that apparent basis, his column took it as a given that Milkovich and Scott had lied to the court and took them to task for demonstrating to their students that they could do so with impunity in order to avoid accountability for their actions. "Anyone who attended the meet," Diadiun wrote, "whether he be from Maple Heights, Mentor, or impartial observer, knows in his heart that Milkovich and Scott lied at the hearing after each having given his solemn oath to tell the truth." TERM 4 Time v. Hill DEFINITION 4 The James Hill referred to in the article is the appellee. He and his wife and five children involuntarily became the subjects of a front-page news story after being held hostage by three escaped convicts in their suburban, Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, home for 19 hours on September 1112, 1952. The family was released unharmed. In an interview with newsmen after the convicts departed, appellee stressed that the convicts had treated the family courteously, had not molested them, and had not been at all violent. The convicts were thereafter apprehended in a widely publicized encounter with the police which resulted in the killing of two of the convicts. Shortly thereafter the family moved to Connecticut. The appellee discouraged all efforts to keep them in the public spotlight through magazine articles or appearances on television. 7 In the spring of 1953, Joseph Hayes' novel, The Desperate Hours, was published. The story depicted the experience of a family of four held hostage by three escaped convicts in the family's suburban home. But, unlike Hill's experience, the family of the story suffer violence at the hands of the convicts; the father and son are beaten and the daughter subjected to a verbal sexual insult. 8 The book was made into a play, also entitled The Desperate Hours, and it is Life's article about the play which is the subject of appellee's action. The complaint sought damages under 5051 on allegations that the Life article was intended, to, and did, give the impression that the play mirrored the Hill family's experience, which, to the knowledge of defendant '* * * was false and untrue.' Appellant's defense was that the article was 'a subject of legitimate news interest,' 'a subject of general interest and of value and concern to the public' at the time of publication, and that it was 'published in good faith without any malice whatsoever * * *.' A motion to dismiss the complaint for substantially these reasons was made at the close of the case and was denied by the trial judge on the ground that the proofs presented a jury question as to the truth of the article. 9 The jury awarded appellee $50,000 compensatory and $25,000 punitive damages. On appeal the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court ordered a new trial as to damages but sustained the jury verdict of liability. The court said as to liability: TERM 5 Time Inc. v. Firestone DEFINITION 5 Time, Inc. v. Firestone, 424 U.S. 448 (1976), was a U.S. Supreme Court case concerning defamation suits against public figures. Mary Alice Firestone was married to Russell A. Firestone, Jr., an heir to the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company family fortune. Mary filed for divorce, and Russell submitted a counterclaim on the grounds of extreme cruelty and adultery. The judge discounted much of the evidence concerning extramarital affairs. Nevertheless, Time, Inc., publisher of the eponymous weekly news magazine, ran an article about the affairs, despite evidence to the contrary. Mary filed suit in a Florida state court seeking $100,000 in damages for libel. Time alleged that Mary was a public figure and could not recover damages based on the ruling of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which protected media from liability in such suits except in cases where there is knowledge of falsity or a reckless disregard for truth. Both the state court and Florida Supreme Court ruled that Mary was not a public figure, using language defined in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974). In a 5-3 decision, with Justice Stevens abstaining, the Supreme Court ruled that Mary was not a public figure and upheld the Florida Supreme Court's decision.