Hustler Magazine, Inc. et al. v. Jerry Falwell (485 U.S. 46) is a legal case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision strengthened free speech rights in relation to parodies of public figures.
The case was argued on December 24, 1988 and the Court handed down its decision on February 24, 1988 by a vote of 8 to 0. William Rehnquist wrote for the Court; Byron White concurred; Anthony Kennedy did not take part.
Larry Flynt made a fortune and contributed to the rise of the sexual revolution in America through publication of his magazine Hustler. While Hustler has always been known for its explicit, even gynecologic pictures of nude women and its crude humor, the prominent fundamentalist Protestant minister Jerry Falwell found nothing funny about a 1983 parody featuring him. In a parody of a magazine advertisement for a popular drink, Hustler described a drunk Falwell having an incestuous encounter with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued Flynt, alleging libel and "intentional infliction of emotional distress."
Can a public figure recover damages for libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress based on a satire, even a vicious satire?
No. The Court found that under the First Amendment, an obvious satire or parody of a public figure remains protected speech, even if it causes emotional distress to that person.
A jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia found the parody did not amount to libel. This is because the courts have set a very high standard for libel when it comes to "public figures," such as politicians and celebrities. These people cannot recover damages for libel unless a "reasonable person" would have thought that there was a factual assertion that the depicted behavior actually happened. The jury was not convinced, therefore, that a typical person reading the satire would have thought that Jerry Falwell really did have sex with his mother in an outhouse.
Nonetheless, the jury returned $200,000 in damages for Falwell on the basis that Flynt had intentionally inflicted "emotional distress" on Falwell. Flynt decided to appeal.
Flynt's lawyer argued that it was just too easy to prove that a satirist intended to emotionally distress his target. If the Supreme Court accepted that standard, then it would make it very easy for public figures to win damages from satirists. This would have a "chilling effect" on satire, as cartoonists and comedians would have to worry that they didn't hurt anyone's feelings too badly.
The Supreme Court agreed with this analysis, and held that a public figure couldn't recover damages for "intentional infliction of emotional distress" unless the satirical assertion was not only false, but the satirist acted with "actual malice." The Supreme Court overturned the decision of the lower court.
If you're confused about what the difference is between the old and new standards here, you're not alone. But essentially the Court said that even if the satire was outrageous and even if the satirist intended to inflict emotional distress, public figures simply had to sit there and take it. Most public figures chose to go on television or act in movies or whatever, so they shouldn't complain. "Actual malice," in this case, would probably not exist unless (for example) Larry Flynt wrote a column in Hustler telling his readers that he had actually seen Falwell having sex with his mom.
Even die-hard conservatives such as Rehnquist agreed with this principle, since they stated that satire (even outrageous satire) has a long and important history in America and that the Founding Fathers had specifically intended for the First Amendment to protect these types of parodies.
After the dust had settled, Larry Flynt went back to publishing explicit pictures of womens' breasts, buttocks, and genitals, and Jerry Falwell went back to denouncing them from the pulpit. The lawyers made a lot of money, and the whole thing was made into a movie called The People vs. Larry Flynt.
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