Court Opinion

ID: 9475964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:44:04.246941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:03.237819
License: Public Domain

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge,
Concurring and Dissenting:
I concur in the result in this case only because I am persuaded that plaintiffs had an obligation to cross-appeal the court’s dismissal of their claims based on negligence, attractive nuisance, and strict liability or dangerous instrumentality. The majority correctly reason that Hustler should have had an opportunity to prepare a defense specifically tailored against any of these theories. Although I believe a tort claim is here defensible, the undeniable novelty of plaintiff’s “incitement” theory does not permit us fairly to support the judgment below.
What disturbs me to the point of despair is the majority’s broad reasoning which appears to foreclose the possibility that any state might choose to temper the excesses of the pornography business by imposing civil liability for harms it directly causes. Consonant with the first amendment, the state can protect its citizens against the moral evil of obscenity,1 the threat of civil disorder or injury posed by lawless mobs2 and fighting words3, and the damage to reputation from libel or defamation4, to say nothing of the myriad dangers lurking in “commercial speech.”5 Why cannot the state then fashion a remedy to protect its children’s lives when they are endangered by suicidal pornography? To deny this possibility, I believe, is to degrade the free market of ideas to a level with the black market for heroin. Despite the grand *1026flourishes of rhetoric in many first amendment decisions concerning the sanctity of “dangerous” ideas, no federal court has held that death is a legitimate price to pay for freedom of speech.
In less emotional terms, I believe the majority has critically erred in its analysis of this case under existing first amendment law. The majority decide at the outset that Hustler’s “Orgasm of Death” does not embody child pornography, fighting words, incitement to lawless conduct, libel, defamation or fraud, or obscenity,6 all of which categories of speech are entirely unprotected by the first amendment. Nor do they find in the article “an effort to achieve a commercial result,” which would afford it modified first amendment protection. Comforted by the inapplicability of these labels, they then accord this article full first amendment protection, holding that in the balance struck between society’s interest in Troy’s life and the chilling effect on the “right of the public to receive ... ideas,” Troy loses. Any effort to find a happier medium, they conclude, would not only be hopelessly complicated but would raise substantial concerns that the worthiness of speech might be judged by “majoritarian notions of political and social propriety and morality.” I agree that “Orgasm of Death” does not conveniently match the current categories of speech defined for first amendment purposes. Limiting its constitutional protection does not, however, disserve any of these categories and is more appropriate to furthering the “majoritarian” notion of protecting the sanctity of human life. Finally, the “slippery slope” argument that if Hustler is held liable here, Ladies Home Journal or the publisher of an article on hang-gliding will next be a casualty of philistine justice simply proves too much: This case is not a difficult one in which to vindicate Troy’s loss of life.
I.
Proper analysis must begin with an examination of Hustler generally and this article in particular. Hustler is not a bona fide competitor in the “marketplace of ideas.” It is largely pornographic, whether or not technically obscene. One need not be male to recognize that the principal function of this magazine is to create sexual arousal. Consumers of this material so partake for its known physical effects much as they would use tobacco, alcohol or drugs for their effects. By definition, pornography’s appeal is therefore non-cognitive and unrelated to, in fact exactly the opposite of, the transmission of ideas.7
Not only is Hustler’s appeal noncognitive, but the magazine derives its profit from that fact. If Hustler stopped being pornographic, its readership would vanish.
According to the trial court record, pornography appeals to pubescent males. Moreover, although sold in the “adults only” section of newsstands, a significant portion of its readers are adolescent. Hustler knows this. Such readers are particularly vulnerable to thrillseeking, recklessness, and mimickry. Hustler should know this. Hustler should understand that to such a mentality the warnings “no” or “caution” may be treated as invitations rather than taboos.
“Orgasm of Death” provides a detailed description how to accomplish autoerotic asphyxiation. The article appears in the “Sexplay” section of the magazine which, among other things, purports to advise its readers on “how to make you a much better lover.”8 The warnings and cautionary comments in the article could be seen by a jury to conflict with both the explicit and subliminal message of Hustler, which is to tear down custom, explode myths and ban*1027ish taboos about sexual matters. The article trades on the symbiotic connection between sex and violence.9 In sum, as Hustler knew, the article is dangerously explicit, lethal, and likely to be distributed to those members of society who are most vulnerable to its message. “Orgasm of Death,” in the circumstances of its publication and dissemination, is not unlike a dangerous nuisance or a stick of dynamite in the hands of a child. Hustler’s publication of this particular article bears the seeds of tort liability although, as I shall explain, the theory on which the case was tried is incorrect.
II.
First amendment analysis is an exercise in line-drawing between the legitimate interests of society to regulate itself and the paramount necessity of encouraging the robust and uninhibited flow of debate which is the life-blood of government by the people. That some of the lines are blurred or irregular does not, however, prove the majority’s proposition that it would be hopelessly complicated to delineate between protected and unprotected speech in this case. Such a formulation in fact begs the critical question in two ways. First, a hierarchy of first amendment speech classifications has in fact developed largely in the last few years,10 and there is no reason to assume the hierarchy is ineluctable. Second, the essence of the judicial function is to judge. If it is impossible to judge, there is no reason for judges to pretend to perform their role, and it is a nonsequitur for them to conclude that society’s or a state’s judgment is “wrong.” Hence, in novel cases like this one, the reasons for protecting speech under the first amendment must be closely examined to properly evaluate Hustler’s claim to unlimited constitutional protection.
The Supreme Court recently engaged in the balancing appropriate to a novel first amendment case in Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749, 105 S.Ct. 2939, 86 L.Ed.2d 593 (1985).11 The Court concluded that the victim of a negligently erroneous credit report might recover presumed and punitive damages from the publisher, in the absence of actual damages. In so doing, it evaluated the interest sought to be protected by the state against the level of first amendment interest embodied in the communication at issue.
The state’s “strong and legitimate” interest in protecting one’s reputation was at issue in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.: “the individual’s right to the protection of his own good name ‘reflects no more than our basic concept of the essential dignity and worth of every human being — a concept at the root of any decent system of ordered liberty. The protection of private personality, like the protection of life itself, is left primarily to the individual States under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments____’” 418 U.S. at 341, 94 S.Ct. at 3008 (quoting Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U.S. 75, 92, 86 S.Ct. 669, 679, 15 L.Ed.2d 597 (1966) (Stewart, J., concurring)) (emphasis added). See also Dun & Bradstreet, 472 U.S. at 757-58, 105 S.Ct. at 2945 (also quoting Justice Stew*1028art’s Rosenblatt statement). The interest in protecting life is recognized specifically for first amendment purposes and, analytically, can be no less important than the interest in reputation. The state’s interest in this case is to protect the lives of adolescents who might be encouraged by pornographic publications and specifically instructed how to attempt life-threatening activities. In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Company, 458 U.S. 886, 102 S.Ct. 3409, 73 L.Ed.2d 1215 (1982), the Supreme Court assumed that if violence had broken out as a result of Charles Evers’ incendiary speech, both the mob and the speaker could have been subjected to damage claims by the victims. For similar reasons, “fighting words” have long been outside the sphere of first amendment protection. See Chaplinskey v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942). The Supreme Court has also dealt favorably with state regulations designed to protect minors from performing sexual acts by prohibiting distribution of films containing such acts. New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 102 S.Ct. 3348, 73 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1982). There the Court found it “evident beyond the need for elaboration that a State’s interest in ‘safeguarding the physical and psychological wellbeing of a minor’ is ‘compelling’.” 458 U.S. at 756-57, 102 S.Ct. at 3354, (quoting Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596, 607, 102 S.Ct. 2613, 2620, 73 L.Ed.2d 248 (1982)). The Court has even gone so far as to uphold an FCC regulation banning “indecent” speech from the airwaves at the times when children would be in the audience. F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726, 98 S.Ct. 3026, 57 L.Ed.2d 1073 (1978). States already regulate the distribution of pornography to minors, see Schauer, supra n. 9, at 196-97, and a remedy for the collateral consequences of unauthorized distribution, by way of a civil action for damages, would only serve to reinforce that regulation.
Permitting recovery of damages in defamation cases offers an analogous framework. Balanced against the state interest, the Court held in Dun & Bradstreet that the first amendment interest at stake was less important than the one weighed in Gertz. 472 U.S. at 758, 105 S.Ct. at 2945. While Gertz involved a libelous publication on a matter of public concern, the false information in Dun & Bradstreet was contained in a credit report distributed to merchants. The Court employed the test of content, form and context, best articulated in Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 148-49, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 1690, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983), to analyze whether the credit report was a matter of “public concern.” Speech on matters of “private concern,” the Court found, while not wholly unprotected, is not as substantial relative to important state interests. Thus, the credit report was prepared solely, for the individual interest of the speaker and a specific business, it was false and clearly damaging, and, like advertising, it represents a form of speech unlikely to be deterred by incidental state regulation: The credit report involved a matter of “private concern.”
Measured by this standard, both Hustler in general and “Orgasm of Death” in particular deserve limited only first amendment protection. Hustler is a profitable commercial enterprise trading on its prurient appeal to a small portion of the population. It deliberately borders on technical obscenity, which would be wholly unprotected, to achieve its purposes, and its appeal is not based on cognitive or intellectual appreciation.12 Because of the solely commercial and pandering nature of the magazine, neither Hustler nor any other pornographic publication is likely to be deterred by incidental state regulation. No sensitive first amendment genius is required to see that, as the Court concluded in Dun & Bradstreet, “[t]here is simply no credible argument that this type of [speech] requires special protection to insure that ‘debate on public issues [will] be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.’ ” 472 U.S. at 762, 105 S.Ct. at 2947, (quoting New York Times *1029Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270, 84 S.Ct. 710, 721, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1967)).
To place Hustler effectively on a par with Dun & Bradstreet’s “private speech” or with commercial speech,13 for purposes of permitting tort lawsuits against it hardly portends the end of participatory democracy, as some might contend. First, any given issue of Hustler may be found legally obscene and therefore entitled to no first amendment protection. Second, tort liability would result after-the-fact, not as a prior restraint, and would be based on harm directly caused by the publication in issue. See NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. at 917-919, 102 S.Ct. at 3427-28. Third, to the extent any chilling effect existed from the exposure to tort liability, this would, in my view, protect society from loss of life and limb, a legitimate, indeed compelling, state interest. Fourth, obscenity has been widely regulated by pri- or restraints for over a century. Before Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957), there was no Hustler magazine and it would probably have been banned. Despite such regulation, it does not appear that the pre-Roth era was a political dark age. Conversely, increasing leniency on pornography in the past three decades has allowed pornography to flourish, but it does not seem to have corresponded with an increased quality of debate on “public” issues. These observations imply that pornography bears little connection to the core values of the first amendment and that political democracy has endured previously in the face of “majoritarian notions of social propriety.”
Rendering accountable the more vicious excesses of pornography14 by allowing damage recovery for tort victims imposes on its purveyors a responsibility which is insurable, much like a manufacturer’s responsibility to warn against careless use of its products. A tort remedy which compensates death or abuse of youthful victims clearly caused by a specific pornographic publication would be unlikely to “chill” the pornography industry any more than unfavorable zoning ordinances15 or the threat of obscenity prosecution16 has done. The reasonableness of allowing a tort remedy in cases like this is reinforced by the fact that only one lawsuit was filed in regard to “Orgasm of Death.” The analogy with regulations on commercial speech is not inappropriate: pornography should assume a lower value on the scale of constitutional protection; and the state regulation by means of tort recovery for injury directly caused by pornography is appropriate when tailored to specific harm and not broader than necessary to accomplish its purpose. See Central Hudson, 447 U.S. at 566, 100 S.Ct. at 2351.
The foregoing analysis immediately differentiates this case from Brandenburg v. Ohio,17 which addressed prior restraints on public advocacy of controversial political ideas. Placing Hustler on the same analytical plane with Brandenburg represents an unwarranted extension of that holding, which, unlike Dun & Bradstreet and the commercial speech cases, rests in the core values protected by the first amendment. Even Brandenburg, how*1030ever, recognized that the state’s regulatory interest legitimately extends to protecting the lives of its citizens from violence induced by speech. Moreover, Brandenburg is intertwined with the context of the speech as well as its content — advocacy of inciteful ideas would thus be differently regarded in a collection of speeches by Tom Paine than it is among a crowd of armed vigilantes who proceed to riot. The Brandenburg test, implicitly rejected by the majority, is simply inappropriate to define the limits of constitutional protection afforded in this case.18 Viewed in the overall context of first amendment jurisprudence, moreover, Brandenburg does not exclude the possibility of state regulation.
III.
Texas courts have never been called upon to assess a claim like this one. Since there is no cross-appeal, we should not speculate on the precise nature of the theory of liability a Texas court might accept, although negligence and attractive nuisance seem theoretically appropriate.19 Texas law supplies no reason to conclude, as the district court did, that Brandenburg v. Ohio, representing a federal constitutional limitation on a state’s restraints on speech, could be turned into an affirmative theory of tort law. I believe this use of Brandenburg is wrong, insofar as it suggests that federal constitutional law rather than state law governs the first issue in this case, which is the nature of the tort committed by Hustler.
Eliminating the Brandenburg incitement theory as a basis for recovery would have been sufficient to reverse the jury award here. The majority go much further, however, and afford Hustler virtually complete protection from tort liability under the first amendment. I vigorously oppose their unnecessary elaboration on first amendment law, which, I believe, will undercut the ability of the states to protect their youth against a reckless and sometimes dangerous business which masquerades as a beneficiary of the first amendment.

. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973).

. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969).

. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942).

. Dun & Bradstreet v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749, 105 S.Ct. 2939, 86 L.Ed.2d 593 (1985); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964).

. See, e.g., Posadas De Puerto Rico Association v. Tourism Company of Puerto Rico,—U.S.-, 106 S.Ct. 2968, 92 L.Ed.2d 266 (1986); Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission of New York, 447 U.S. 557, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 65 L.Ed.2d 341 (1980); Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Association, 436 U.S. 447, 98 S.Ct. 1912, 56 L.Ed.2d 444 (1978); Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Counsel, 425 U.S. 748, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976).

. Counsel for Hustler essentially conceded in the trial court that their magazine was obscene.

. See Sunstein, "Pornography and the First Amendment,” 1986 Duke L.J. 589, 606-07 (1986).

. The introduction to the Sexplay section states: "Many sexual pleasures have remained hidden for too long____ In keeping with HUSTLER’S belief that the repression of natural and healthy urges is physically and emotionally damaging, we present this series of informative articles to increase your sexual knowledge, lessen your inhibitions and — ultimately to make you a much better lover.”

. The Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography concluded recently that the assumption that pornography has "no negative effects” is no longer tenable. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography: Final Report, Vol. I at 1031 (July 1986) (hereinafter cited as the Commission Report ). The Commission concluded that there is a direct causal relationship between exposure to sexually violent materials and antisocial sexual violence and, with some segments of the population, with unlawful acts of violence. Id. at 326. The Commission also concluded that substantial exposure to degrading but "non-violent" sexual material, bears "some causal relationship to the level of sexual violence, sexual coercion, or unwanted sexual aggression in the population so exposed.” Id. at 334. See also F. Schauer, The Law of Obscenity 62 (1976) (concluding that a significant proportion of research “indicates some relationship between pornography and antisocial conduct for those who, on account of other factors, would be so disposed in any account”).

. See generally G. Gunther, Cases & Materials on Constitutional Law, chs. 12, 13 (10th ed. 1980).

. The holding in Dun & Bradstreet specifically states that the credit reports there involved did not constitute "commercial speech” as that term is understood for first amendment purposes. 472 U.S. at 762 n. 8, 105 S.Ct. at 2947 n. 8.

. In FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, the Court’s opinion states that patently offensive references to excretory and sexual organs and activities, while to some extent protected, "surely lie at the periphery of First Amendment concern." 438 U.S. at 743, 98 S.Ct. at 3037.

. Compare Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission of New York, 447 U.S. 557, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 65 L.Ed.2d 341 (1980).

. See, for example, the Meese Commission Report, whose research samples included 2,325 magazine titles, 725 book titles, and 2,370 film titles. Commission Report, supra n. 9, Vol. II at 1504. While more graphic titles are cited, the following is a list of the more shocking pornographic publication titles: Animal Action, Incest Mommy, Island of Incest, I Want All Night Abuse, Knocked up Black Mama, Nazi Sex Slave, Nympho Mother’s Incest Obsession, Pregnant Dildo Bondage, Pregnant Lesbians, Slave Exchange, Teenage Tramp, Transvestites Getting Together, Teen Rape Orgy, The Nuns Animal Fun, Unwilling Sex Slave.

. City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U.S. 41, 106 S.Ct. 925, 89 L.Ed.2d 29 (1986).

. The production, distribution, and retail sale of pornographic materials has become a multibillion dollar industry in the United States. See Commission Report, supra n. 9, Vol. II, ch. 8. Current laws and their enforcement apparently have little deterrent effect on this blossoming industry. Id., Vol. I at 366-72.

. 395 U.S. 444, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969).

. Compare Comment, "Tort Liability for Non-libelous Negligent Statements: First Amendment Considerations,” 93 Yale LJ. 744 (1984) (advocating liability on a negligence standard defined by reference to Brandenburg)', with Comment, "Tort Liability of the Media for Audience Acts of Violence: A Constitutional Analysis,” 52 S.Cal.L.Rev. 529 (1979) (similar standard to Yale Law Journal).

. In Weirum v. RKO, 15 Cal.3d 40, 123 Cal.Rptr. 468, 539 P.2d 36 (1975), the Supreme Court of California held a radio station liable for broadcasting a promotional event which caused the teenage listeners to participate in a high-speed chase in the Los Angeles freeways killing a motorist. There was a direct connection between the station’s broadcast and the fatal accident. In Hyde v. Missouri, 637 S.W.2d 251 (Mo.Ct.App.1982) the court held a newspaper and other defendants liable for publishing the name of a victim of a sexual assault while her attacker was still at large. The causal connection between the published information and the attacker’s continued threats to the victim was again straightforward. Other courts have rejected damage claims based on tenuous facts, Zamora v. Columbia Broadcasting System, 480 F.Supp. 199 (S.D.Fla.1979), or first amendment analysis with which I differ. DeFilippo v. National Broadcasting Co., 446 A.2d 1036 (R.I.1982); Olivia N. v. National Broadcasting Co., 126 Cal.App.3d 488, 178 Cal.Rptr. 888 (1981).