New York Times Company v. Sullivan:
1964

Appellant: The New York Times Company
Appellee: L.B. Sullivan
Appellant Claims: That the Supreme Court of Alabama's affirmation of a libel judgment against the Times violated the free speech and due process rights as defined by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution and certain Supreme Court decisions; also, that an advertisement published in the Times was not libelous and the Supreme Court should reverse the decision of the Alabama trial court.
Chief Defense Lawyers: Sam Rice Baker, M. Roland Nachman, Jr., and Robert E. Steiner Ill
Chief Lawyers for Appellant: Herbert Brownell, Thomas F. Daly, and Herbert Wechsler
Justices: Hugo L. Black, William J. Brennan, Jr., Tom C. Clark, William 0. Douglas, Arthur J. Goldberg, John M. Harlan, Potter Stewart, Earl Warren, and Byron R. White
Place: Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision: March 9, 1964
Decision: The Alabama courts' decisions were reversed.

SIGNIFICANCE: The U.S. Supreme Court limited for the first time states' authority to award libel damages based on individual state laws and defined "actual malice" as a national standard for determining libel cases involving public figures.

On March 23, 1960, an organization calling itself the "Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South" paid the New York Times to publish a certain advertisement. The ad took up one full page and was a call for public support and money to defend Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights struggle in the South. Bearing the caption "Heed Their Rising Voices" in large, bold print, the ad was published in the March 29, 1960, edition of the Times.

The ad criticized several Southern jurisdictions, including the city of Montgomery, Alabama, for breaking up various civil rights demonstrations. No individual was mentioned by name. Further, the ad declared that "Southern violators of the Constitution" were determined to destroy King and his movement. The reference was to the entire South, not just Montgomery and other localities, and again no individual was mentioned by name.

Over 600,000 copies of the March 29, 1960, Times edition carrying the ad were printed. Only a couple hundred went to Alabama subscribers. Montgomery City Commissioner L.B. Sullivan learned of the ad through an editorial in a local newspaper. Incensed, on April 19, 1960, Sullivan sued the Times for libel in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Alabama. Sullivan claimed that the ad's reference to Montgomery and to "Southern violators of the Constitution" had the effect of defaming him, and he demanded $500,000 in compensation.

On November 3, 1960, the Circuit Court found the Times guilty and awarded Sullivan the full $500,000 in damages. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the Circuit Court judgment on August 30, 1962. In its opinion, the Alabama Supreme Court gave an extremely broad definition of libel:

Where the words published tend to injure a person libeled by them in his reputation, profession, trade or business, or charge him with an indictable offense, or tends to bring the individual into public contempt [they] are libelous per se.… We hold that the matter complained of [by Sullivan] is, under the above doctrine, libelous per se.

Supreme Court Protects the Press

The Times's chief lawyers, Herbert Brownell, Thomas F. Daly, and Herbert Wechsler, took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Sullivan's chief lawyers were Sam Rice Baker, M. Roland Nachman, Jr., and Robert E. Steiner III. On January 6, 1964 the two sides appeared at a hearing in Washington, D.C., before Supreme Court Justices Hugo L. Black, William J. Brennan, Jr., Tom C. Clark, William 0. Douglas, Arthur J. Goldberg, John M. Harlan, Potter Stewart, Earl Warren, and Byron R. White.

On March 9, 1964, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Alabama courts' decisions, holding that Alabama libel law violated the Times's First Amendment rights. Justice Brennan stated for the Court that:

We hold that the rule of law applied by the Alabama courts is constitutionally deficient for failure to provide the safeguards for freedom of speech and of the press that are required by the First [Amendment] in a libel action brought by a public official against critics of his official conduct.

The Court was in fact only recognizing what Alabama's own newspapers had been saying, namely that Alabama's libel law was a powerful tool in the hands of anti-civil rights officials. The Montgomery Advertiser had even printed an edition (before the Sullivan case went to the Court) with the headline "STATE FINDS FORMIDABLE LEGAL CLUB TO SWING AT OUT-OF-STATE PRESS," reporting that "State and city authorities have found a formidable legal bludgeon to swing at out-of-state newspapers whose reporters cover racial incidents in Alabama." The Court's decision invalidated Alabama's overly broad libel law so that it couldn't be used anymore to threaten freedom of the press.

Next, Justice Brennan stated what the Court had determined was the proper basis of libel law under the First Amendment in cases involving publications concerning public officials:

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."

Sullivan hadn't proven that the Times acted with actual malice, so even if Alabama's libel law wasn't unconstitutional, his lawsuit still had to be rejected. What constitutes actual malice? The Court defined it as:

knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.

In certain libel lawsuits after New York Times Company v. Sullivan, the Court expanded the First Amendment's protection. For any "public figure" to sue for libel, he or she would have to prove actual malice. The Court has said that public figures include anyone widely known in the community, not just public officials. Further, anyone accused of libel is protected by this actual malice requirement, not just newspapers like the Times. The Sullivan case was a tremendous advance for personal as well as press freedom of speech, and it prevented legitimate criticism and social commentary from being suppressed by the threat of damaging libel lawsuits. Sullivan has not, however, become a license to print anything that the papers see fit: as in Reynolds v. Pegler (see separate entry), defendants who do act with actual malice are subject to severe penalties.

—Stephen G. Christianson

Suggestions for Further Reading

Bain, George. "A Question of Honor, Malice and Rights." Maclean's (October 1984): 64.

Friedman, Robert. "Freedom of the Press: How Far Can it Go?" American Heritage (October-November 1982): 16-22.

Hopkins, W. Wat. Actual Malice: Twenty-Five Years After Times v. Sullivan. New York: Praeger, 1989.

Lewis, Anthony. Make No Law: the Sullivan Case and the First Amendment. New York: Random House, 1991.

Winfield, Richard N. New York Times v. Sullivan: the Next Twenty Years. New York: Practicing Law Institute, 1984.