Court Opinion

ID: 9736076
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:42:37.027889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:04.158398
License: Public Domain

CAPPY, Justice,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Nix in this case. Perhaps out of an overabundance of caution, however, I write separately to emphasize that which I believe to be paramount in all cases requiring a balancing of competing constitutional rights.
As Justice Marshall notes in Florida Star v. B.J.F., 491 U.S. 524, 109 S.Ct. 2603, 105 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989), there are special problems raised by cases such as this one, cases which involve “the tension between the right which the First Amendment accords to a free press, on the one hand, and the protections which various statutes and common law doctrines accord to personal privacy against the publication of truthful information, on the other____” 109 S.Ct. at 2607.
Given the vital importance in American life — and in American constitutional law — both of personal privacy rights and of the interests of the media in truthful publication, the Florida Star Court advised appellate courts to take special care to avoid making overly broad decisions in this area. As the Court reasoned, “the sensitivity and significance of the interest presented in clashes between First Amendment and privacy rights counsel relying on limited principles that sweep no more broadly than the appropriate context of the instant case.” 109 S.Ct. at 2609.
In Florida Star, which has required the remand of the instant action, Justice Marshall repeatedly comments on the limited and fact-bound nature of decisions involving the balancing of privacy and press. I believe it is important to heed that warning. It is never simple to balance the constitutional rights of one citizen against the constitutional *528rights of another citizen, knowing full well that the outcome will require a derogation of the rights of one of the litigants.
Thus, the role of the court is to tread lightly, to balance carefully and to decide each case only on the facts before it. We do not and should not sweep with so broad a brush that we have limited ourselves in future cases in which the facts would compel a different outcome. As Justice Marshall states, “we have emphasized each time that we were resolving this conflict only as it arose in a discrete factual context.” 109 S.Ct. at 2607.
This area of law demands such a rigorous, case-by-case development. To do otherwise is to give short shrift to the important constitutional interests that may arise in this Court in the future. Recognizing that the majority performed the delicate balancing required, I enthusiastically join its opinion.