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 . [p*255] (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 . 273 Ala. 656, 144 So.2d
25, reversed and remanded. [p*256]
Back to First Amendment Surpreme Court Cases List