| The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued January 6, 1964 Decided March 9, 1964 | |
| Full case name |
|
| Citations | 376U.S.254 (more) |
| Argument | Oral argument |
| Reargument | Reargument |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Judgment for plaintiff, Circuit Court, Montgomery County, Alabama; motion for new trial denied, Circuit Court, Montgomery County; affirmed, 144 So. 2d 25 (Ala. 1962);cert. granted,371 U.S. 946 (1963). |
| Holding | |
| A newspaper cannot be held liable for making false defamatory statements about the official conduct of a public official unless the statements were made withactual malice. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Brennan, joined by Warren, Clark, Harlan, Stewart, White |
| Concurrence | Black, joined by Douglas |
| Concurrence | Goldberg (in result), joined by Douglas |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amends. I,XIV | |
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), was alandmarkU.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled thefreedom of speech protections in theFirst Amendment to the U.S. Constitution limit the ability of a public official to sue fordefamation.[1][2] The decision held that if aplaintiff in a defamation lawsuit is a public official or candidate for public office, then not only must they provethe normal elements of defamation—publication of a false defamatory statement to a third party—they must also prove that the statement was made with "actual malice", meaning thedefendant either knew the statement was false or recklessly disregarded whether it might be false.[2]New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is frequently ranked as one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions of the modern era.[3]
The case began in 1960, whenThe New York Times published a full-page advertisement by supporters ofMartin Luther King Jr. that criticized the police inMontgomery, Alabama, for their treatment ofcivil rights movement protesters.[2] The ad had several factual errors regarding the number of times King had been arrested during the protests, what song the protesters had sung, and whether students had been expelled for participating.[2] Based on the inaccuracies, Montgomery police commissioner L. B. Sullivan sued theTimes for defamation in the local Alabama county court.[2] After the judge ruled that the advertisement's inaccuracies were defamatoryper se, thejury returned a verdict in favor of Sullivan and awarded him $500,000 indamages.[2] TheTimes appealed first to theSupreme Court of Alabama, which affirmed the verdict, and then to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In March 1964, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Alabama court's verdict violated the First Amendment.[1] The Court reasoned that defending the principle of wide-open debate will inevitably include "vehement, caustic, and... unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." The Supreme Court's decision, and its adoption of theactual malice standard for defamation cases by public officials, reduced the financial exposure from potential defamation claims and frustrated efforts by public officials to use these claims to suppress political criticism.[4][5] The Supreme Court has since extendedSullivan's higher legal standard for defamation to all "public figures". This has made it extremely difficult for a public figure to win a defamation lawsuit in the United States.
On March 29, 1960,The New York Times carried a full-page advertisement titled "Heed Their Rising Voices", paid for by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South.[6][7] In the advertisement, the Committee solicited funds to defendMartin Luther King Jr., against anAlabamaperjury indictment. The advertisement described actions against civil rights protesters, some of them inaccurately, some of which involved the police force ofMontgomery, Alabama. Referring to Alabama "official authority and police power", the advertisement stated: "They have arrested [King] seven times. ... ", whereas he had been arrested four times; and that "truckloads of police ... ringed the Alabama State College Campus" after the demonstration at the State Capitol, whereas the police had been "deployed near" the campus but had not actually "ringed" it and had not gone there in connection with the State Capitol demonstration.[1] Although the Montgomery Public Safety commissioner, L. B. Sullivan, was not named in the advertisement, Sullivan argued that the inaccurate criticism of actions by the police was defamatory to him as well because it was his duty to supervise the police department.[1]
Because Alabama law denied public officers recovery of punitive damages in a libel action on their official conduct unless they first made a written demand for a public retraction and the defendant failed or refused to comply, Sullivan sent such a request.[1] TheTimes did not publish a retraction in response to the demand. Instead, its lawyers wrote a letter[8] 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."[1]
Sullivan did not respond but instead filed a libel suit a few days later. He also sued four African-American ministers mentioned in the ad:Ralph Abernathy,S.S. Seay Sr.,Fred Shuttlesworth, andJoseph Lowery.
TheTimes subsequently published a retraction of the advertisement upon the demand of GovernorJohn Patterson of Alabama, who alleged the publication charged him with "grave misconduct and ... improper actions and omissions as Governor of Alabama andex officio chairman of the State Board of Education of Alabama."[1] When asked to explain why there had been a retraction for the Governor but not for Sullivan, the Secretary of theTimes testified:
We did that because we didn't want anything that was published by theTimes 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 we had by that time learned more of the 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 theex officio chairman ...
However, the Secretary also testified he did not think that "any of the languages in there referred to Mr. Sullivan."[1]
The jury returned a verdict for Sullivan and awarded him $500,000 in damages ($5.26 million in2024). The state supreme court affirmed[9] on August 30, 1962, saying "The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution does not protect libelous publications".The Times appealed to the United States Supreme Court.[10][11]
Constitutional law scholarHerbert Wechsler successfully argued the case before the United States Supreme Court.Louis M. Loeb, a partner at the firm ofLord Day & Lord who served as chief counsel to theTimes from 1948 to 1967,[12] was among the authors of the brief of theTimes.
On March 9, 1964, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9–0 decision in favor of theTimes that vacated the Alabama court's judgment and limited newspapers' liability for damages in defamation suits by public officials.
JusticeWilliam J. Brennan Jr. authored the Court's opinion, joined by Chief JusticeEarl Warren and JusticesTom C. Clark,John M. Harlan II,Potter Stewart, andByron White. JusticesHugo Black andArthur Goldberg wrote separate concurrences in judgement only, with JusticeWilliam O. Douglas joining both concurrances.
The Court began by explaining that the ability to criticize public government officials was at the core of the American rights tofreedom of speech andfreedom of the press protected by the First Amendment.[13]
The general proposition that freedom of expression upon public questions is secured by the First Amendment has long been settled by our decisions. The constitutional safeguard, we have said, "was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people." ... "[I]t is a prized American privilege to speak one's mind, although not always with perfect taste, on all public institutions." ... The First Amendment, said JudgeLearned Hand, "presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many, this is, and always will be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all."
— Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 269–70 (citations omitted).[14]
The Court said that because of these core American free-speech principles, it would have to consider Sullivan's defamation claims "against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."[15]
With this background, the Court framed the case around the question of whether this American constitutional commitment to free speech required loosening traditional defamation laws.
The present advertisement, as an expression of grievance and protest on one of the major public issues of our time, would seem clearly to qualify for the constitutional protection. The question is whether it forfeits that protection by the falsity of some of its factual statements and by its alleged defamation of respondent.
— Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 271.
In answer, the Court held that the free-speech protections of the First Amendment covered theTimes advertisement despite its factual inaccuracies. The Court reasoned that "erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate, and ... must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the breathing space that they need ... to survive".[16] It concluded that the importance of safeguarding the "breathing space" created by the First Amendment's protections required giving constitutional protection to "erroneous statements honestly made".[17] The Court analogized Alabama's libel law to the infamousAlien and Sedition Acts passed in the 1790s during the presidency ofJohn Adams.[17] It reasoned that a broad interpretation of libel laws that protected government officials from criticism would produce situations similar to those under the Alien and Sedition Acts, which had been historically criticized.[17]
Because of the importance of free debate about public officials, the Court held that it was not enough that Alabama's libel law—like most libel laws in the Englishcommon law tradition—allowed defendants to use the truth of their defamatory statements as a defense.[13] Instead, the Court held that under U.S. law, any public official suing for defamation must prove that the defendant made the defamatory statement with "actual malice".
The constitutional guarantees require, we think, 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.
— Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 279–80.[18]
The Court said that besides proving "actual malice", the First Amendment's protections also imposed two other limitations on libel laws. First, a public official seeking damages must prove that the defendant's defamatory statement was about the official individually, not about government policy generally. Second, unlike in traditional common law defamation lawsuits where the defendant had the burden to prove that his or her statement was true, in defamation suits involving American public officials the officials must prove that the defendant's statement was false.[17]
The rule that somebody alleging defamation should have to prove untruth, rather than that the defendant should have to prove the truth of a statement, stood as a departure from the previouscommon law. In England, the development was specifically rejected inDerbyshire County Council v. Times Newspapers Ltd[19] and it was also rejected in Canada inHill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto[20] and more recently inGrant v. Torstar Corp.[21] In Australia, the outcome of the case was followed inTheophanous v. The Herald & Weekly Times Ltd,[22] butTheophanous was itself overruled by the High Court of Australia inLange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1997) 189 CLR 520.
In 2014, on the 50th anniversary of the ruling,The New York Times released an editorial in which it stated the background of the case, laid out the rationale for the Supreme Court decision, critically reflected on the state of freedom of the press 50 years after the ruling and compared the state of freedom of the press in the United States with other nations. The editorial board ofThe New York Times heralded theSullivan decision not only as a ruling which "instantly changed libel law in the United States", but also as "the clearest and most forceful defense of press freedom in American history."[23] The board added:
The ruling was revolutionary because the court for the first time rejected virtually any attempt to squelch criticism of public officials—even if false—as antithetical to "the central meaning of the First Amendment." Today, our understanding of freedom of the press comes in large part from the Sullivan case. Its core observations and principles remain unchallenged, even as the Internet has turned everyone into a worldwide publisher—capable of calling public officials instantly to account for their actions and also of ruining reputations with the click of a mouse.[23]
In a 2015Time magazine survey of over 50 law professors, bothOwen Fiss (Yale) and Steven Shiffrin (Cornell) namedNew York Times v. Sullivan "the best Supreme Court decision since 1960", with Fiss noting that the decision helped cement "the free-speech traditions that have ensured the vibrancy of American democracy" and Schiffrin remarking that the case "overturned thecensorial aspects of the law oflibel and made it far easier in what’s left of our democracy for citizens—including theFourth Estate—to criticize the powerful."[3]
The potential for reconsideration of the precedent ofSullivan were raised in the late 2010s and early 2020s.[24] Leading into and during his first presidency from 2016 to 2020,Donald Trump called for changes in libel laws, taking issue with reporting fromThe New York Times and the content ofBob Woodward's book,Fear: Trump in the White House in 2018.[25][26]
Trump's view was seconded by JusticeClarence Thomas in several opinions in Supreme Court cases.[27] Thomas advocated reevaluatingSullivan in an opinion attached to the court's 2019 denial to hear a libel case brought by Katherine McKee, one of the women thataccusedBill Cosby of sexual assault. McKee claimed Cosby had leaked a letter that permanently damaged her reputation. Lower courts rejected her case based onSullivan, stating that she "thrust herself to the forefront of a public controversy", making her a limited public figure and requiring the higher standard of malice to be demonstrated. While Thomas wrote that the Court's decision to deny McKee's petition based onSullivan was correct, he further wrote thatSullivan was wrongly decided, and that "If the Constitution does not require public figures to satisfy an actual-malice standard in state-law defamation suits, then neither should we".[28] Thomas also repeated calls to reviewSullivan in his dissent inBerisha v. Lawson in 2021 and in his dissent to the court's denial to hearDon Blankenship's appeal, in the latter saying thatSullivan allows news agencies to "cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity".[29] JusticeNeil Gorsuch also joined in Thomas inBerisha in expressing his concerns of how the media landscape had changed sinceSullivan.[30]
Federal judgeLaurence Silberman called on the Supreme Court to overturnNew York Times v. Sullivan in a March 2021 opinion, stating that theNew York Times andThe Washington Post are "virtually Democratic Party broadsheets".[24] Silberman's dissent also accusedbig tech companies of censoring conservatives and warned that "Democratic Party ideological control" of mainstream media may be a prelude to an "authoritarian or dictatorial regime" that constitutes "a threat to a viable democracy".[31][32]
Las Vegas casino ownerSteve Wynn had filed defamation lawsuits against theAssociated Press in 2018, claiming that articles published by the agency that contained allegations related to Wynn and sexual assault in the 1970s. Wynn argued that the Associated Press had used actual malice in their reporting. The Nevada courts dismissed Wynn's suit, arguing he had failed to show "actual malice" under theSullivan decision. Wynn subsequently has petitioned the Supreme Court to hear his case in February 2025, asking them to overturn the "actual malice" standard ofSullivan.[33] The Supreme Court declined to grant certiorari to Wynn's case in March 2025.[34]
On March 19, 2023,The New York Times published a story reviewing the original advertisement and the legal case.[35]
A version of this editorial appeared in print on March 9, 2014, on page SR10 of the New York edition with the headline: The Uninhibited Press, 50 Years Later.
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