Monitor Patriot Co v. Roy

Decision Date24 February 1971
Docket NumberNo. 62,62
Citation28 L.Ed.2d 35,401 U.S. 265,91 S.Ct. 621
PartiesMONITOR PATRIOT CO. et al., Petitioners, v. Roselle A. ROY, etc
CourtU.S. Supreme Court
Syllabus

Just before the 1960 New Hampshire Democratic primary election, petitioner newspaper published a column characterizing senatorial candidate Roy as a 'former small-time bootlegger.' Roy, who was not elected, sued the newspaper and the distributor of the column for libel. The judge told the jury that Roy, as a candidate, was a 'public official,' and that a rule requiring a showing that the article was false and had been published 'with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or true,' applied as long as the libel concerned 'official' as opposed to 'private' conduct. The jury were instructed that if they found the libel to be in the 'public sector,' they had to bring in a verdict for the distributor, as there was no evidence that it had engaged in knowing or reckless falsehood, but that they had to decide on the 'preponderance of the evidence' whether the newspaper was liable. If the publication was in the 'private sector,' there were two defenses: (1) 'justification,' if the article was true and published on a 'lawful occasion,' and (2) 'conditional privilege,' if the article was false but if the publication was 'on a lawful occasion, in good faith, for a justifiable purpose, and with a belief founded on reasonable grounds of the truth of the matter published.' The jury returned a verdict against both the newspaper and the distributor of the column. The State Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the jury properly considered whether the alleged libel was 'relevant' to Roy's fitness for office. Held:

1. Publications concerning candidates for public office must be accorded at least as much protection under the First and Fourteenth Amendments as those concerning occupants of public office. Pp. 270—272.

2. As a matter of constitutional law, a charge of criminal conduct, no matter how remote in time or place, can never be irrelevant to an official's or a candidate's fitness for purposes of applying the 'knowing falsehood or reckless disregard' rule of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686. Pp. 272—277.

3. The jury here were erroneously permitted to determine that the criminal charge was not 'relevant' and that the New York Times standard was inapplicable. P. 277.

109 N.H. 441, 254 A.2d 832, reversed and remanded.

Edward Bennett Williams, Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

Stanley M. Brown, Manchester, N.H., for respondent.

Mr. Justice STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

On September 10, 1960, three days before the New Hampshire Democratic Party's primary election of candidates for the United States Senate, the Concord Monitor, a daily newspaper in Concord, New Hampshire, published a syndicated 'D.C. Merry-Go-Round' column discussing the forthcoming election. The column spoke of political maneuvering in the primary campaign, referred to the criminal records of several of the candidates, and characterized Alphonse Roy, one of the candidates, as a 'former small-time bootlegger.'1 Roy was not elected in the primary, and he subsequently sued the Monitor Patriot Co. and the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA), the distributor of the column, for libel.

The newspaper and NANA offered 'truth' as their primary defense at trial, and evidence was presented on the issue of whether or not Roy had in fact been a bootlegger during the prohibition era. The defendants also alleged that they had published in good faith, without malice, with a reasonable belief in the probable truth of the charge, and on a lawful occasion. At the close of the evidence, the trial judge instructed the jury at great length on the law to be applied to the case. Three possible defenses emerged from these jury instructions.

First, the trial judge told the jury that Roy was a 'public official' by virtue of his candidacy in the primary. As a consequence, a special rule, requiring a showing that the article was false and had been published with 'knowledge of its falsity or with a reckless disregard of whether it was false or true,' would apply so long as the libel concerned 'official conduct' as opposed to 'private conduct.' This private-public distinction was elaborated as follows: 'Is it more probable than otherwise that the publication that the plaintiff was a former small-time bootlegger was a public affair on a par with official conduct of public officials?' The trial judge went on:

'As a candidate for the United State Senate, the plaintiff was within the public official concept, and a candidate must surrender to public scrutiny and discussion so must of his private character as affects his fitness for office. That is, anything which might touch on Alphonse Roy's fitness for the office of United States Senator would come within the concept of official conduct. If it would not touch upon or be relevant to his fitness for the office for which he was a candidate but was rather a bringing forward of the plaintiff's long forgotten misconduct in which the public had no interest, then it would be a private matter in the private sector.'

The judge then instructed the jury that if it found the libel to be in the 'public sector' it must bring in a verdict for NANA, since there had been no evidence that NANA had engaged in knowing or reckless falsehood, but that it still had to on the 'preponderance of the evidence' whether the newspaper was liable.

Supposing the publication to be in the 'private sector,' the trial judge instructed the jury that there were two possible defenses available to the newspaper and NANA. The first was 'justification,' which would prevail if the jury found that the article was both true and published on a 'lawful occasion.' 2 The second defense was 'con- ditional privilege,' which could prevail even if the jury found the article to be false, but only if it also found that its publication was 'on a lawful occasion, in good faith, for a justifiable purpose, and with a belief founded on reasonable grounds of the truth of the matter published.'

The jury returned a verdict of $20,000, of which $10,000 was against the newspaper and $10,000 against NANA. On appeal, the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed the judgment, holding that the trial judge properly sent to the jury the question of whether or not the particular libel alleged was 'relevant' to Roy's fitness for office. 109 N.H. 441, 254 A.2d 832. We granted certiorari in order to consider the constitutional issues presented by the case. 397 U.S. 904, 90 S.Ct. 909, 25 L.Ed.2d 85.

I

In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279—280, 84 S.Ct. 710, 726, 11 L.Ed.2d 686, we held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments require '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.' The rule of New York Times was based on a recognition that the First Amendment guarantee of a free press is inevitably in tension with state libel laws designed to secure society's interest in the protection of individual reputation. The approach of New York Times was to identify a class of person— there public officials—and a type of activity—there official conduct—and to require as to defamations respecting them a particularly high standard of liability—knowing falsehood or reckless disregard of the truth. Later cases have made it clear that the applicability of this basic approach is not limited to those in public office or to the performance of official acts, or, for that matter, to conventional civil libel suits. Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64, 85 S.Ct. 209, 13 L.Ed.2d 125; Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 87 S.Ct. 1975, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094; Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Assn. v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6, 90 S.Ct. 1537, 26 L.Ed.2d 6.

This case went to the jury in December 1966, after our decisions in New York Times and Garrison, but before Curtis and Greenbelt. The trial judge instructed the jury that Roy, as a candidate for elective public office, was a 'public official,' and that characterization has not been challenged here. Given the later cases, it might be preferable to categorize a candidate as a 'public figure,' if for no other reason than to avoid straining the common meaning of words. But the question is of no importance so far as the standard of liability in this case is concerned, for it is abundantly clear that, whichever term is applied, publications concerning candidates must be accorded at least as much protection under the First and Fourteenth Amendments as those concerning occupants of public office. That New York Times itself was intended to apply to candidates, in spite of the use of the more restricted 'public official' terminology, is readily apparent from that opinion's text and citations to case law.3 And if it be conceded that the First Amendment was 'fashioned to assure the unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people,' Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 484, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1308, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498, then it can hardly be doubted that the constitutional guarantee has its fullest and most urgent application precisely to the conduct of campaigns for political office.

II

The jury in this case returned verdicts against both the newspaper and NANA. It is clear, therefore, that it found the bootlegger charge to be in the 'private sector,' since it had been instructed that unless it so found it could not impose liability on NANA. It is possible that having made this determination, it then concluded that the charge was true but 'unjustified'—that is, that it had been published without a 'lawful occasion.' In...

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