New York Times Co

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan

No. 39

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

376 U.S. 254

Argued January 6, 1964

Decided March 9, 1964

* Together with No. 40, Abernathy et al. v. Sullivan,
also on certiorari to the same court, argued January 7, 1964.

Syllabus

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

New York Times Co

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan

No. 39

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

376 U.S. 254

Argued January 6, 1964

Decided March 9, 1964

* Together with No. 40, Abernathy et al. v. Sullivan,
also on certiorari to the same court, argued January 7, 1964.

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

We are required in this case to determine for the first time the extent to
which the constitutional projection for speech and press limit a State's power
to award damages in a libel action brought by a public official against critics
of his official conduct.

Respondent L.B. Sullivan is one of the three elected Commissioners of the
City of Montgomery, Alabama. He testified that he was "Commissioner of
Public Affairs and the duties are supervision of the Police Department, Fire
Department, Department of Cemetery and Department of Scales." He brought
this civil libel action against the four individual petitioners, who are
Negroes and Alabama clergymen, and against petitioner the New York Times Company,
a New York corporation which publishes the New York Times, a daily newspaper. A
jury in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County awarded him damages of $500,000,
the full amount claimed, against all the petitioners, and the Supreme Court of
Alabama affirmed. 273 Ala. 656, 144 So.2d 25.

Respondent's complaint alleged that he had been libeled by statements in a
full-page advertisement that was carried in the New York Times on March 29,
1960. [note 1] Entitled "Heed Their Rising Voices," the advertisement
began by stating that, "As the whole world knows by now, thousands of
Southern Negro students are engaged in widespread nonviolent demonstrations in
positive affirmation of the right to live in human dignity as guaranteed by the
U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights." It went on to charge that,
"in their efforts to uphold these guarantees, they are being met by an
unprecedented wave of terror by those who would deny and negate that document
which the whole world looks upon as setting the pattern for modern freedom. . .
.' Succeeding [257] paragraphs purported to illustrate the "wave of
terror" by describing certain alleged events. The text concluded with an