Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc./Concurrence White

by Byron White

United States Supreme Court

403 U.S. 29

Rosenbloom  v.  Metromedia, Inc.

 Argued: Dec. 7 and 8, 1970. --- Decided: June 7, 1971

Mr. Justice WHITE, concurring in the judgment.

* Under existing law the First Amendment is deemed to permit recoveries for damaging falsehoods published about public officials or public figures only if the defamation is knowingly or recklessly false. But until today the First Amendment has not been thought to prevent citizens who are neither public officials nor public figures from recovering damages for defamation upon proving publication of a false statement injurious to their reputation. There has been no necessity to show deliberate falsehood, recklessness, or even negligence.

The Court has now decided that the First Amendment requires further restrictions on state defamation laws. Mr. Justice BRENNAN and two other members of the Court would require proof of knowing or reckless misrepresentation of the facts whenever the publication concerns a subject of legitimate public interest, even though the target is a 'private' citizen. Only residual areas would remain in which a lower degree of proof would obtain.

Three other members of the Court also agree that private reputation has enjoyed too much protection and the media too little. But in the interest of protecting reputation, they would not roll back state laws so far. They would interpret the First Amendment as proscribing liability without fault and would equate non-negligent falsehood with faultless conduct. The burden of the damaging lie would be shifted from the media to the private citizen unless the latter could prove negligence or some higher degree of fault. They would also drastically limit the authority of the States to award compensatory and punitive damages for injury to reputation.

Mr. Justice BLACK, consistently with the views that he and Mr. Justice DOUGLAS have long held, finds no room in the First Amendment for any defamation recovery whatsoever.

Given this spectrum of proposed restrictions on state defamation laws and assuming that Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice DOUGLAS will continue in future cases to support the severest of the restrictions, it would seem that at least five members of the Court would support each of the following rules:

For public officers and public figures to recover for damage to their reputations for libelous falsehoods, they must prove either knowing or reckless disregard of the truth. All other plaintiffs must prove at least negligent falsehood, but if the publication about them was in an area of legitimate public interest, then they too must prove deliberate or reckless error. In all actions for libel or slander, actual damages must be proved, and awards of punitive damages will be strictly limited.

For myself, I cannot join any of the opinions filed in this case. Each of them decides broader constitutional issues and displaces more state libel law than is necessary for the decision in this case. As I have said, Mr. Justice BRENNAN would extend the privilege enunciated in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964), to publications upon any 'subject of public or general interest.' See ante, at 43. He would thereby extend the constitutional protection to false and damaging, but non-malicious, publications about such matters as the health and environmental hazards of widely used manufactured products, the mental and emotional stability of executives of business establishments, and the racial and religious prejudices of many groups and individuals. All of these are, of course, subjects of real concern, and arguments for placing them within the scope of New York Times are by no means frivolous.

For Mr. Justice MARSHALL and Mr. Justice HARLAN, Mr. Justice BRENNAN's opinion is both too severe and too limited. They would make more sweeping incursions into state tort law but purportedly with less destructive weapons. They would permit suit by some plaintiffs barred under Mr. Justice BRENNAN's opinion, but would require all plaintiffs to prove at least negligence before any recovery would be allowed.

I prefer at this juncture not to proceed on such a broad front. I am quite sure that New York Times Co. v. Sullivan was the wiser course, but I am unaware that state libel laws with respect to private citizens have proved a hazard to the existence or operations of the communications industry in this country. Some members of the Court seem haunted by fears of self-censorship by the press and of damage judgments that will threaten its financial health. But technology has immeasurably increased the power of the press to do both good and evil. Vast communication combines have been built into profitable ventures. My interest is not in protecting the treasuries of communicators but in implementing the First Amendment by insuring that effective communication which is essential to the continued functioning of our free society. I am not aware that self-censorship has caused the press to tread too gingerly in reporting 'news' concerning private citizens and private affairs or that the reputation of private citizens has received inordinate protection from falsehood. I am not convinced that we must fashion a constitutional rule protecting a whole range of damaging falsehoods and so shift the burden from those who publish to those who are injured.

I say this with considerable deference since all my Brethren have contrary views. But I would not nullify a major part of state libel law until we have given the matter the most thorough consideration and can articulate some solid First Amendment grounds based on experience and our present condition. As it is, today's experiment rests almost entirely on theoretical grounds and represents a purely intellectual derivation from what are thought to be important principles of tort law as viewed in the light of the primacy of the written and spoken word.

This case lends itself to more limited adjudication. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan itself made clear that discussion of the official actions of public servants such as the police is constitutionally privileged. 'The right of free public discussion of the stewardship of public officials' is, in the language of that case, 'a fundamental principle of the American form of government.' 376 U.S., at 275, 84 S.Ct., at 723. Discussion of the conduct of public officials cannot, however, be subjected to artificial limitations designed to protect others involved in an episode with officials from unfavorable publicity. Such limitations would deprive the public of full information about the official action that took place. In the present case, for example, the public would learn nothing if publication only of the fact that the police made an arrest were permitted; it is also necessary that the grounds for the arrest and, in many circumstances, the identity of the person arrested be stated. In short, it is rarely informative for a newspaper or broadcaster to state merely that officials acted unless he also states the reasons for their action and the persons whom their action affected.

Nor can New York Times be read as permitting publications that invade the privacy or injure the reputations of officials, but forbidding those that invade the privacy or injure the reputations of private citizens against whom official action is directed. New York Times gives the broadcasting media and the press the right not only to censure and criticize officials but also to praise them and the concomitant right to censure and criticize their adversaries. To extend constitutional protection to criticism only of officials would be to authorize precisely that sort of thought control that the First Amendment forbids government to exercise.

I would accordingly hold that in defamation actions, absent actual malice as defined in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the First Amendment gives the press and the broadcast media a privilege to report and comment upon the official actions of public servants in full detail, with no requirement that the reputation or the privacy of an individual involved in or affected by the official action be spared from public view. Since respondent Metromedia did nothing more in the instant case, I join in holding its broadcasts privileged. I would not, however, adjudicate cases not now before the Court.

Mr. Justice HARLAN, dissenting.

Notes