HAY ABOGADOS QUE QUEIREN TUMBARLEEL DINERO AL PUEBLO CON ESTO NI A PRIMERA BASE LLEGA VEREMOS EL RETO ESTA HECHADO
Syllabus
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
376 U.S.
254
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA
No. 39 Argued: January 6, 1964 ---
Decided: March
9, 1964
Respondent, an
elected official in Montgomery ,
Alabama , brought suit in a state
court alleging that he had been libeled by an advertisement in corporate
petitioner's newspaper, the text of which appeared over the names of the four
individual petitioners and many others. The advertisement included statements,
some of which were false, about police action allegedly directed against
students who participated in a civil rights demonstration and against a leader
of the civil rights movement; respondent claimed the statements referred to him
because his duties included supervision of the police department. The trial
judge instructed the jury that such statements were "libelous per se," legal injury
being implied without proof of actual damages, and that, for the purpose of
compensatory damages, malice was presumed, so that such damages could be
awarded against petitioners if the statements were found to have been published
by them and to have related to respondent. As to punitive damages, the judge
instructed that mere negligence was not evidence of actual malice, and would
not justify an award of punitive damages; he refused to instruct that actual
intent to harm or recklessness had to be found before punitive damages could be
awarded, or that a verdict for respondent should differentiate between
compensatory and punitive damages. The jury found for respondent, and the State
Supreme Court affirmed.
Held: A State cannot, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, award damages to a
public official for defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct
unless he proves "actual malice" -- that the statement was made with
knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or
false. Pp. 265-292.
(a) Application
by state courts of a rule of law, whether statutory or not, to award a judgment
in a civil action, is "state action" under the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 265.
(b) Expression
does not lose constitutional protection to which it would otherwise be entitled
because it appears in the form of a paid advertisement. Pp. 265-266. [p255]
(c) Factual error,
content defamatory of official reputation, or both, are insufficient to warrant
an award of damages for false statements unless "actual malice" --
knowledge that statements are false or in reckless disregard of the truth -- is
alleged and proved. Pp. 279-283.
(d) State court
judgment entered upon a general verdict which does not differentiate between
punitive damages, as to which, under state law, actual malice must be proved,
and general damages, as to which it is "presumed," precludes any
determination as to the basis of the verdict, and requires reversal, where
presumption of malice is inconsistent with federal constitutional requirements.
P. 284.
(e) The
evidence was constitutionally insufficient to support the judgment for
respondent, since it failed to support a finding that the statements were made
with actual malice or that they related to respondent. Pp. 285-292.
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