388 U.S. 130 and 389 U.S. 28

Case Year: 1967

Case Ruling: No. 37: 5-4, Affirmed; No.150: 9-0, Reversed and Remanded

Opinion Justice: Harlan

FACTS

Justice Brennan's opinion in New York Times v. Sullivan significantly altered the course of libel law, making it more difficult for public officials to bring actions against the media. Specifically, Brennan asserted that if plaintiffs were public officials, they had to demonstrate that a statement was false, damaging, and "made with 'actual malice'--that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not."

The decision raised as many questions as it answered. For example, exactly who is considered a public official? In footnote 23 Brennan wrote, "We have no occasion here to determine how far down into lower ranks of government employees the 'public official' designation would extend." It became evident, however, that when an appropriate case presented itself, the Court would have to draw some distinctions. How it did so would have significant ramifications because, under the New York Times test, only public officials had to prove actual malice; other plaintiffs were bound only to the traditional standards that the statements were false and damaging. Equally difficult were other questions raised by the New York Times decision: Did this new standard apply only to public officials engaged in their official duty? How could a public official prove actual malice? What did that term encompass?

In 1967 the Court decided two cases, Curtis Publishing Company v. Butts and Associated Press v. Walker, in hopes of clarifying its New York Times ruling. At issue in Curtis was a Saturday Evening Post article entitled "The Story of a College Football Fix." The author asserted that Wally Butts, the athletic director at the University of Georgia, had given Paul Bryant, the football coach at the University of Alabama, "the plays, defensive patterns, and all the significant secrets Georgia's football team possessed." According to the article, Butts was attempting to fix a 1962 game between the two schools. The author claimed he had obtained this information from an Atlanta insurance salesman, who had accidentally overheard the conversation between Butts and Bryant. Butts initiated a libel suit against the publishing company, arguing that the article was false and damaging. Although the Court had yet to hand down the New York Timesdecision, Butts's suit also alleged that actual malice had occurred because the Saturday Evening Post "had departed greatly from the standards of good investigation and reporting." Evidence introduced at the trial showed that theSaturday Evening Post had done little to verify the insurance salesman's story. The magazine's attorneys "were aware of the progress" of the New York Times case, but offered only a defense of truth. A jury awarded Butts $3,060,000 in damages, but the judge reduced the award to $460,000. The Post asked for a new trial based on the subsequent New York Times decision--that Butts was a public figure and should have to prove actual malice. The judge refused, asserting that Butts was not a public official and, even if he were, there was sufficient evidence to conclude that the magazine had acted with "reckless disregard for the truth."

Associated Press v. Walker concerned a 1962 AP story that related an eyewitness account of the riots at the University of Mississippi over the government-ordered admission of James Meredith, a black student. According to the story, retired army general Edwin Walker "took command of the violent crowd and ... led a charge against federal marshals," who were in Mississippi to oversee the desegregation process. It also alleged that Walker had given the segregationists instructions on how to combat the effects of tear gas. Walker sued the Associated Press for $2 million in compensatory and punitive damages, arguing that the article was false and damaging. The jury awarded $500,000 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages, but the judge set aside the latter on the ground that Walker, while not a public official, was a public figure--his views on integration were well known and, as such, he had to prove actual malice under the New York Times standard.

The justices were unable to agree upon an opinion, but a majority (although for different reasons) ruled in favor of Butts's claim and against Walker's.

 

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN ANNOUNCED THE JUDGMENTS OF THE COURT AND DELIVERED AN OPINION IN WHICH MR. JUSTICE CLARK, MR. JUSTICE STEWART, AND MR. JUSTICE FORTAS JOIN.

In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, this Court held that "[t]he constitutional guarantees [of freedom of speech and press] require ... a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with `actual malice' that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." We brought these two cases here, to consider the impact of that decision on libel actions instituted by persons who are not public officials, but who are "public figures" and involved in issues in which the public has a justified and important interest. The sweep of the New York Times rule in libel actions brought under state law was a question expressly reserved in that case, and while that question has been involved in later cases,... it has not been fully settled.

The matter has, however, been passed on by a considerable number of state and lower federal courts and has produced a sharp division of opinion as to whether the New York Times rule should apply only in actions brought by public officials or whether it has a longer reach.... The resolution of the uncertainty in this area of libel actions requires, at bottom, some further exploration and clarification of the relationship between libel law and the freedom of speech and press, lest the New York Times rule become a talisman which gives the press constitutionally adequate protection only in a limited field, or, what would be equally unfortunate, one which goes far to immunize the press from having to make just reparation for the infliction of needless injury upon honor and reputation through false publication. These two libel actions, although they arise out of quite different sets of circumstances, provide that opportunity. We think they are best treated together in one opinion....

In New York Times we were adjudicating in an area which lay close to seditious libel, and history dictated extreme caution in imposing liability. The plaintiff in that case was an official whose position in government was such "that the public [had] an independent interest in the qualifications and performance of the person who [held] it."... Such officials usually enjoy a privilege against libel actions for their utterances, ... and there were analogous considerations involved in New York Times. Thus we invoked "the hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies," ... and limited recovery to those cases where "calculated falsehood" placed the publisher "at odds with the premises of democratic government and with the orderly manner in which economic, social, or political change is to be effected."... That is to say, such officials were permitted to recover in libel only when they could prove that the publication involved was deliberately falsified, or published recklessly despite the publisher's awareness of probable falsity. Investigatory failures alone were held insufficient to satisfy this standard....

In the cases we decide today none of the particular considerations involved in New York Times is present. These actions cannot be analogized to prosecutions for seditious libel. Neither plaintiff has any position in government which would permit a recovery by him to be viewed as a vindication of governmental policy. Neither was entitled to a special privilege protecting his utterances against accountability in libel. We are prompted, therefore, to seek guidance from the rules of liability which prevail in our society with respect to compensation of persons injured by the improper performance of a legitimate activity by another. Under these rules, a departure from the kind of care society may expect from a reasonable man performing such activity leaves the actor open to a judicial shifting of loss. In defining these rules, and especially in formulating the standards for determining the degree of care to be expected in the circumstances, courts have consistently given much attention to the importance of defendants' activities.... The courts have also, especially in libel cases, investigated the plaintiff's position to determine whether he has a legitimate call upon the court for protection in light of his prior activities and means of self-defense.... We note that the public interest in the circulation of the materials here involved, and the publisher's interest in circulating them, is not less than that involved in New York Times. And both Butts and Walker commanded a substantial amount of independent public interest at the time of the publications; both, in our opinion, would have been labeled "public figures" under ordinary tort rules.... Butts may have attained that status by position alone and Walker by his purposeful activity amounting to a thrusting of his personality into the "vortex" of an important public controversy, but both commanded sufficient continuing public interest and had sufficient access to the means of counterargument to be able "to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies" of the defamatory statements....

These similarities and differences between libel actions involving persons who are public officials and libel actions involving those circumstanced as were Butts and Walker, viewed in light of the principles of liability which are of general applicability in our society, lead us to the conclusion that libel actions of the present kind cannot be left entirely to state libel laws, unlimited by any overriding constitutional safeguard, but that the rigorous federal requirements of New York Times are not the only appropriate accommodation of the conflicting interests at stake. We consider and would hold that a "public figure" who is not a public official may also recover damages for a defamatory falsehood whose substance makes substantial danger to reputation apparent, on a showing of highly unreasonable conduct constituting an extreme departure from the standards of investigation and reporting ordinarily adhered to by responsible publishers....

Nothing in this opinion is meant to affect the holdings in New York Times and its progeny....

Having set forth the standard by which we believe the constitutionality of the damage awards in these cases must be judged, we turn now, as the Court did in New York Times, to the question whether the evidence and findings below meet that standard. We find the standard satisfied in No. 37, Butts, and not satisfied by either the evidence or the findings in No. 150,Walker.

The Butts jury was instructed, in considering punitive damages, to assess "the reliability, the nature of the sources of the defendant's information, its acceptance or rejection of the sources, and its care in checking upon assertions." These considerations were said to be relevant to a determination whether defendant had proceeded with "wanton and reckless indifference." In this light we consider that the jury must have decided that the investigation undertaken by the Saturday Evening Post, upon which much evidence and argument was centered, was grossly inadequate in the circumstances. The impact of a jury instruction "is not to be ascertained by merely considering isolated statements but by taking into view all the instructions given and the tendencies of the proof in the case to which they could possibly be applied."...

This jury finding was found to be supported by the evidence by the trial judge and the majority in the Fifth Circuit. Given the extended history of the case, the amount of the evidence pointing to serious deficiencies in investigatory procedure, and the severe harm inflicted on Butts, we would not feel justified in ordering a retrial of the compensatory damage issue, either on the theory that this aspect of the case was submitted to the jury only under the issue of "truth," or on the very slim possibility that the jury finding regarding punitive damages might have been based on Curtis' attitude toward Butts rather than on Curtis' conduct.

The evidence showed that the Butts story was in no sense "hot news" and the editors of the magazine recognized the need for a thorough investigation of the serious charges. Elementary precautions were, nevertheless, ignored....

The Post writer assigned to the story was not a football expert and no attempt was made to check the story with someone knowledgeable in the sport.... Those assisting the Post writer in his investigation were already deeply involved in another libel action, based on a different article, brought against Curtis Publishing Co. by the Alabama coach and unlikely to be the source of a complete and objective investigation. The Saturday Evening Post was anxious to change its image by instituting a policy of "sophisticated muckraking," and the pressure to produce a successful expose might have induced a stretching of standards. In short, the evidence is ample to support a finding of highly unreasonable conduct constituting an extreme departure from the standards of investigation and reporting ordinarily adhered to by responsible publishers. The situation inWalker is considerably different....

In contrast to the Butts article, the dispatch which concerns us in Walker was news which required immediate dissemination. The Associated Press received the information from a correspondent who was present at the scene of the events and gave every indication of being trustworthy and competent. His dispatches in this instance, with one minor exception, were internally consistent and would not have seemed unreasonable to one familiar with General Walker's prior publicized statements on the underlying controversy. Considering the necessity for rapid dissemination, nothing in this series of events gives the slightest hint of a severe departure from accepted publishing standards. We therefore conclude that General Walker should not be entitled to damages from the Associated Press....

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in No. 37 is affirmed. The judgment of the Texas Court of Civil Appeals in No. 150 is reversed and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with the opinions that have been filed herein by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE BLACK, and MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN.

It is so ordered.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN, CONCURRING IN THE RESULT.

While I agree with the results announced by MR. JUSTICE HARLAN in both of these cases, I find myself in disagreement with his stated reasons for reaching those results. Our difference stems from his departure from the teaching of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), to which we both subscribed only three years ago. In the New York Times case, we held that a State cannot, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, award damages to a "public official" for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless the verdict is based on proof of "actual malice" that is, proof that the defamatory statement was made "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." The present cases involve not "public officials," but "public figures" whose views and actions with respect to public issues and events are often of as much concern to the citizen as the attitudes and behavior of "public officials" with respect to the same issues and events.

All of us agree that the basic considerations underlying the First Amendment require that some limitations be placed on the application of state libel laws to "public figures" as well as "public officials." Similarly, the seven members of the Court who deem it necessary to pass upon the question agree that the respondents in these cases are "public figures" for First Amendment purposes. Having reached this point. however, MR. JUSTICE HARLAN's opinion departs from the standard of New York Times and substitutes in cases involving "public figures" a standard that is based on "highly unreasonable conduct" and is phrased in terms of "extreme departure from the standards of investigation and reporting ordinarily adhered to by responsible publishers." I cannot believe that a standard which is based on such an unusual and uncertain formulation could either guide a jury of laymen or afford the protection for speech and debate that is fundamental to our society and guaranteed by the First Amendment.

To me, differentiation between "public figures" and "public officials" and adoption of separate standards of proof for each have no basis in law, logic, or First Amendment policy. Increasingly in this country, the distinctions between governmental and private sectors are blurred. Since the depression of the 1930's and World War II there has been a rapid fusion of economic and political power, a merging of science, industry, and government, and a high degree of interaction between the intellectual, governmental, and business worlds. Depression, war, international tensions, national and international markets, and the surging growth of science and technology have precipitated national and international problems that demand national and international solutions. While these trends and events have occasioned a consolidation of governmental power, power has also become much more organized in what we have commonly considered to be the private sector. In many situations, policy determinations which traditionally were channeled through formal political institutions are now originated and implemented through a complex array of boards, committees, commissions, corporations, and associations, some only loosely connected with the Government. This blending of positions and power has also occurred in the case of individuals so that many who do not hold public office at the moment are nevertheless intimately involved in the resolution of important public questions or, by reason of their fame, shape events in areas of concern to society at large.

Viewed in this context, then, it is plain that although they are not subject to the restraints of the political process, "public figures," like "public officials," often play an influential role in ordering society. And surely as a class these "public figures" have as ready access as "public officials" to mass media of communication, both to influence policy and to counter criticism of their views and activities. Our citizenry has a legitimate and substantial interest in the conduct of such persons, and freedom of the press to engage in uninhibited debate about their involvement in public issues and events is as crucial as it is in the case of "public officials." The fact that they are not amenable to the restraints of the political process only underscores the legitimate and substantial nature of the interest, since it means that public opinion may be the only instrument by which society can attempt to influence their conduct.

I therefore adhere to the New York Times standard in the case of "public figures" as well as "public officials." It is a manageable standard, readily stated and understood, which also balances to a proper degree the legitimate interests traditionally protected by the law of defamation. Its definition of "actual malice" is not so restrictive that recovery is limited to situations where there is "knowing falsehood" on the part of the publisher of false and defamatory matter. "Reckless disregard" for the truth or falsity, measured by the conduct of the publisher, will also expose him to liability for publishing false material which is injurious to reputation. More significantly, however, the New York Times standard is an important safeguard for the rights of the press and public to inform and be informed on matters of legitimate interest. Evenly applied to cases involving "public men"--whether they be "public officials" or "public figures"--it will afford the necessary insulation for the fundamental interests which the First Amendment was designed to protect.

I have no difficulty in concluding that No. 150, Associated Press v. Walker, must be reversed since it is in clear conflict withNew York Times. The constitutional defenses were properly raised and preserved by the petitioner. The trial judge expressly ruled that no showing of malice in any sense had been made, and he reversed an award of punitive damages for that reason. The seven members of this Court who reach the question agree with that conclusion, and all agree that the courts below erred in holding the First Amendment inapplicable. Under any reasoning, General Walker was a public man in whose public conduct society and the press had a legitimate and substantial interest.

But No. 37, Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, presents an entirely different situation. There, no First Amendment defenses were raised by the petitioner until after the trial. Because of this failure and because the case was tried before our decision inNew York Times, the trial judge did not instruct the jury in terms of the precise formulation we adopted. In connection with the issue of punitive damages, however, the trial judge did give an "actual malice" instruction which invoked the elements we later held necessary in New York Times. He instructed the jury that it would have to find "actual malice" before awarding punitive damages, and he continued by defining "actual malice" as denoting "wanton or reckless indifference or culpable negligence with regard to the rights of others" and as including notions of "ill will, spite, hatred and an intent to injure one." Under the Georgia law of defamation which governed the case, the jury was also specifically required to find that the defamatory statements were false before it could award any damages, and it was so instructed. With the jury's attention thus focused on this threshold requirement of falsity, the references in the instructions to wanton or reckless indifference and culpable negligence most probably resulted in a verdict based on the requirement of reckless disregard for the truth of which we spoke in New York Times. Although the "actual malice" instructions were not also given in connection with the compensatory damage issue, it is difficult to conceive how petitioner could have been prejudiced by that failure in view of the fact that the jury, guided by "actual malice" instructions, awarded $3,000,000 in punitive damages....

MR. JUSTICE BLACK, WITH WHOM MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS JOINS, CONCURRING IN THE RESULT IN NO. 150. AND DISSENTING IN NO. 37.

... These cases illustrate, I think, the accuracy of my prior predictions that the New York Times constitutional rule concerning libel is wholly inadequate to save the press from being destroyed by libel judgments. Here the Court reverses the case ofAssociated Press v. Walker, but affirms the judgment of Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts. The main reason for this quite contradictory action, so far as I can determine, is that the Court looks at the facts in both cases as though it were a jury and reaches the conclusion that the Saturday Evening Post, in writing about Butts, was so abusive that its article is more of a libel at the constitutional level than is the one by the Associated Press. That seems a strange way to erect a constitutional standard for libel cases. If this precedent is followed, it means that we must in all libel cases hereafter weigh the facts and hold that all papers and magazines guilty of gross writing or reporting are constitutionally liable, while they are not if the quality of the reporting is approved by a majority of us. In the final analysis, what we do in these circumstances is to review the factual questions in cases decided by juries--a review which is a flat violation of the Seventh Amendment.

It strikes me that the Court is getting itself in the same quagmire in the field of libel in which it is now helplessly struggling in the field of obscenity. No one, including this Court, can know what is and what is not constitutionally obscene or libelous under this Court's rulings. Today the Court will not give the First Amendment its natural and obvious meaning by holding that a law which seriously menaces the very life of press freedom violates the First Amendment. In fact, the Court is suggesting various experimental expedients in libel cases, all of which boil down to a determination of how offensive to this Court a particular libel judgment may be, either because of its immense size or because the Court does not like the way an alleged libelee was treated. Again I suggest ... that we are rapidly but surely getting ourselves in the dilemma we found ourselves in when we were compelled to overrule the ill-starred case of Betts v. Brady, in order that the state courts of the country might be able to determine with some degree of certainty when an indigent person was entitled to the benefit of a lawyer and avoid the spawning of hundreds of habeas corpus cases that finally raised questions that a lawyer could and would have raised at the trial.

I think it is time for this Court to abandon New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and adopt the rule to the effect that the First Amendment was intended to leave the press free from the harassment of libel judgments.

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, WITH WHOM MR. JUSTICE WHITE JOINS, CONCURRING IN THE RESULT IN NO. 150, AND DISSENTING IN NO. 37.

... In No. 37, Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, insofar as THE CHIEF JUSTICE's opinion demonstrates that the evidence unmistakably would support a judgment for Butts under the New York Times standard, I agree. I would, however, remand for a new trial since the charge to the jury did not comport with that standard. The charge on compensatory damages directed that the jury find liability on a finding of mere falsehood. And the trial court stated that punitive damages might be awarded on a finding of "actual malice" which it defined to encompass "the notion of ill will, spite, hatred and an intent to injure one," and also to denote "a wanton or reckless indifference or culpable negligence with regard to the rights of others." The court detailed some factors the jury could consider in applying this standard. It said, for example, that "[a] publication may be so extravagant in its denunciation and so vituperative in its character as to justify an inference of malice," and that "proof that the plaintiff did demand a retraction but that the defendant failed to retract the article may be considered by you on the question of punitive damages." But "[d]ebate 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 "good motives" of the publisher can be no more relevant in the context of "public men" than in the context of criticism of "public officials."... The court added that thePost could show in mitigation of punitive damages that "it in good faith relied upon certain matters which had come to its attention." This makes crystal clear that the standard announced authorized the jury to award punitive damages even though it found that the Post had in good faith relied on matters which had come to its attention. The charge undoubtedly fails to comport with New York Times.

That the evidence might support a verdict under New York Times cannot justify our taking from the jury the function of determining, under proper instructions, whether the New York Times standard has been met. The extent of this Court's role in reviewing the facts, in a case such as this, is to ascertain whether there is evidence by which a jury could reasonably find liability under the constitutionally required instructions.... When, as in this case, such evidence appears, the proper disposition in this federal case is to reverse and remand with direction for a new trial....