Opinion ID: 318460
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Words

Text: 8 Judge Gesell found that 'what occurred in this instance was a pointed verbal assault on fellow employees . . ..', 4 and we take this to be based on the use of 'Pigs Off Census' as a slogan on the sign held up at the table of the two supervisors, since there was no other verbal activity by appellants during their demonstration. 9 The District Court's 'verbal assault' concept ahs a reference point in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942), which sustained a conviction for the use of offensive language to a person lawfully in the street, on the ground that the New Hampshire Supreme Court had sharply limited the statutory language 'offensive, derisive, or annoying word' to 'fighting' words. See Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U.S. 518, 522-523, 92 S.Ct. 1103, 31 L.Ed.2d 408 (1972). So-called 'fighting words' are 'those personally abusive epithets which, when addressed to the ordinary citizen, are, as a matter of common knowledge, inherently likely to provoke violent reaction.' Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 20, 91 S.Ct. 1780, 1785, 29 L.Ed.2d 284 (1971) (Harlan, J.). 10 For purposes of First Amendment protection, we cannot equate the 'Pigs Off Census' sign, as used in the circumstances of this case, with 'fighting words'. This slogan had been used previously in the lunchroom, without any indication that it might provoke a violent reaction on the part of other employees. The fact that words may offend the sensibility of some is not determinative. As Justice Harlan stated in Cohen, supra, at 21, 91 S.Ct. at 1786, 11 The ability of the government, consonant with the Constitution, to shut off discourse solely to protect others from hearing it is, in other words, dependent upon a showing that substantial privacy interests are being invaded in an essentially intolerable manner. Any broader view of this authority would effectively empower a majority to silence dissidents simply as a matter of personal predilections. 12 In some cases, a different result can follow from directing the words at particular individuals as compared with a general audience, since the potential for provocation in the former event might be greater. 5 But the words in this case had acquired a certain currency in lunchroom demonstrations and since the two supervisors were 'embarrassed' rather than subject to violent reaction, this is not such a case. See Lewis v. City of New Orleans, supra note 5, vacating and remanding a conviction where a police officer, while in the performance of his duty, was called 'g-- d--- m----- f----- police'. 6