Flynt V Falwell Summary

Hustler Magazine and Larry C. Flynt v. Jerry Falwell: 108 S. Ct. 876 Supreme Court of the United States

CAUSE OF ACTION: Recover damages for invasion of privacy, libel, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

FACTS: The inside front cover of the November 1983 issue of Hustler Magazine featured a "parody" of an advertisement for Campari Liqueur that contained the name and picture of respondent and was entitled "Jerry Falwell talks about his first time." This parody was modeled after actual Campari ads that included interviews with various celebrities about their "first times” time they sampled Campari however the ads clearly played on the sexual double entendre of the general subject of "first times."

Hustler chose Jerry
Falwell as the featured celebrity and drafted an alleged "interview" with him in which he states that his "first time" was during a drunken incestuous rendezvous with his mother in an outhouse. The Hustler parody portrays respondent and his mother as drunk and immoral, and suggests that respondent is a hypocrite who preaches only when he is drunk. However, the bottom of the ad contained the disclaimer, “ad parody – not to be taken seriously” and the ad was listed in the magazine’s table of contents as “Fiction; Ad and Personality Parody.”

Jerry Falwell sued Hustler Magazine and Larry Flynt for invasion of privacy, libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The District Court threw out the invasion of privacy claim and sent the other two claims to a jury. The jury found Hustler Magazine not guilty on defamation of character claim and guilty on the intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury awarded Jerry Falwell $ 100,000 in compensatory damages, as well as $ 50,000 each in punitive damages from petitioners.

ISSUE: Under the First Amendment is the petitioner (Jerry Falwell) able to recover damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress being a public figure?
HOLDING: No. The First Amendment prohibits awarding damages to public figures for emotional distress intentionally inflicted upon them.
LAW: The First Amendment of the Federal Constitution prohibits public figures and public officials from recovering for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress by reason of the publication of a caricature, unless it is shown that the publication contains a false statement of fact which was made with actual malice, that is, with knowledge that the statement was false or with reckless disregard as to whether it true.
RATIONALE: New York Times Co.
v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), ruled that a public figure may hold a speaker liable for the damage to reputation caused by publication of a defamatory falsehood, but only if the statement was made "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." This ad parody did not display actual malice, that is Hustler did not publish false facts in order to intentionally harm this man, also that no reasonable person could believe the facts of the ad to be true. Although the ad may have been distasteful and outrageous, according to the respondent, "Outrageousness" in the area of political and social discourse has an inherent subjectiveness about it which would allow a jury to impose liability on the basis of the jurors' tastes or views, or perhaps on the basis of their dislike of a particular expression. An "outrageousness" standard thus runs afoul of our longstanding refusal to allow damages to be awarded because the speech in question may have an adverse emotional impact on the audience. See NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 910 (1982) ("Speech does not lose its protected character . . . simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action"). Also, as stated in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726
(1978):
[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 consequence is a reason for according it constitutional protection. [p56] For it is a central tenet of the First Amendment that the government must remain neutral in the marketplace of ideas.
We recognized in Pacifica Foundation that speech that is "‘vulgar,' ‘offensive,' and ‘shocking'" is "not entitled to absolute constitutional protection under all circumstances." 438 U.S. at 747. In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), we held that a State could lawfully punish an individual for the use of insulting "‘fighting' words -- those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace." Id. at 571-572. These limitations are but recognition of the observation in Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749, 758 (1985), that this Court has "long recognized that not all speech is of equal First Amendment importance." But the sort of expression involved in this case does not seem to us to be governed by any exception to the general First Amendment principles stated above.
Jerry Falwell is a minister who (1) is the host of a nationally syndicated television show, (2) was the founder and president of a political organization formerly known as the Moral Majority, (3) is the founder of a university, and (4) is the author of several books and publications is a "public figure" for purposes of the freedom-of-expression guaranties of the Federal Constitution's First Amendment.