Court Opinion

ID: 9426017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:30.335811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.644194
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Powell,
concurring.
I join in the Court’s opinion, as I agree with the holding and most of its supporting rationale.1 My understanding of some of our decisions concerning the law of defamation, however, differs from that expressed in today’s opinion. Accordingly, I think it appropriate to state separately my views.
I am in entire accord with the Court’s determination that the First Amendment proscribes imposition of civil liability in a privacy action predicated on the truthful publication of matters contained in open judicial records. But my impression of the role of truth in defamation actions brought by private citizens differs from the Court’s. The Court identifies as an “open” question the issue of “whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments require that truth be recognized as a defense in a defamation action brought by a private person as distin*498guished from a public official or a public figure.” Ante, at 490. In my view, our recent decision in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323 (1974), largely resolves that issue.
Gertz is the most recent of a line of cases in which this Court has sought to resolve the conflict between the State’s desire to protect the reputational interests of its citizens and' the competing commands of the First Amendment. In each of the many defamation actions considered in the 10 years following New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964), state law provided that truth was a defense to the action.2 Today’s opinion reiterates what we previously have recognized, see Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 74 (1964) — that the defense of truth is constitutionally required when the subject of the alleged defamation is a public figure. Ante, at 489-490. Indeed, even if not explicitly recognized, this determination is implicit in the Court’s articulation of a standard of recovery that rests on knowing or *499reckless disregard of the truth. I think that the constitutional necessity of recognizing a defense of truth is equally implicit in our statement of the permissible standard of liability for the publication or broadcast of defamatory statements whose substance makes apparent the substantial danger of injury to the reputation of a private citizen.
In Gertz we held that the First Amendment prohibits the States from imposing strict liability for media publication of allegedly false statements that are claimed to defame a private individual. While providing the required “breathing space” for First Amendment freedoms, the Gertz standard affords the States substantial latitude in compensating private individuals for wrongful injury to reputation.3 “[S]o long as they do not impose liability without fault, the States may define for themselves the appropriate standard of liability for a publisher or broadcaster of defamatory falsehood injurious to a private individual.” 418 U. S., at 347. The requirement that the state standard of liability be related to the defendant’s failure to avoid publication of “defamatory falsehood” limits the grounds on which a normal action for defamation can be brought. It is fair to say that if the statements are true, the standard contemplated by Gertz cannot be satisfied.
In Gertz we recognized the need to establish a broad rule of general applicability, acknowledging that such an *500approach, necessarily requires treating alike cases that involve differences as well as similarities. Id., at 343-344. Of course, no rule of law is infinitely elastic. In some instances state actions that are denominated actions in defamation may in fact seek to protect citizens from injuries that are quite different from the wrongful damage to reputation flowing from false statements of fact. In such cases, the Constitution may permit a different balance to be struck. And, as today’s opinion properly recognizes, causes of action grounded in a State’s desire to protect privacy generally implicate interests that are distinct from those protected by defamation actions. But in cases in which the interests sought to be protected are similar to those considered in Gertz, I view that opinion as requiring that the truth be recognized as a complete defense.

 At the outset, I note my agreement that Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241 (1974), supports the conclusion that the issue presented in this appeal is final for review. 28 U. S. C. § 1257.

 In Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374 (1967), the Court considered a state cause of action that afforded protection against unwanted-publicity rather than damage to reputation through the publication of false statements of fact. In such actions, however, the State also recognized that truth was an absolute defense against liability for publication of reports concerning newsworthy people or events. Id., at 383. The Court’s abandonment of the “matter of general or public interest” standard as the determinative factor for deciding whether to apply the New York Times malice standard to defamation litigation brought by private individuals, Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 346 (1974); see also Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U. S. 29, 79 (1971) (Marshall, J., dissenting), calls into question the conceptual basis of Time, Inc. v. Hill. In neither Gertz nor our more recent decision in Cantrell v. Forest City Publishing Co., 419 U. S. 245 (1974), however, have we been called upon to determine whether a State may constitutionally apply a more relaxed standard of liability under a false-light theory of invasion of privacy. See id., at 250-251; Gertz, supra, at 348; ante, at 490 n. 19.

 Our recent opinions dealing with First Amendment limitations on state defamation actions all center around the common premise that while the Constitution requires that false ideas be corrected only by the competitive impact of other ideas, the First Amendment affords no constitutional protection for false statements of fact. See Gertz, supra, at 339-340. Beginning with this common assumption, the decisions of this Court have undertaken to identify a standard of care with respect to the truth of the published facts that will afford the required “breathing space” for First Amendment values.