Court Opinion

ID: 9481861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:34:08.412879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:37.677916
License: Public Domain

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I join in part III of the court’s opinion affirming the district court’s denial of declaratory relief, but concur only in the court’s judgment that defendants are immune from liability. Plaintiffs have alleged that one Commissioner, in a telephone call to an official of Southland Corporation, conveyed a false statement about the Commission’s findings for the purpose of inducing Southland to stop distributing Penthouse magazine. Although part II of the court’s opinion suggests otherwise, I believe the First Amendment may well prohibit government officials from spreading false, derogatory information in order to interfere with a publisher’s distribution of protected material. While this might require an inquiry into the official’s motive, it is not unusual for a First Amendment violation to turn on whether governmental conduct was undertaken for the purpose of infringing on someone’s speech. See Mt. Healthy City School District v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1974). I also do not think there would be any particular difficulty in drawing a line between cases in which an official has spoken the truth or perhaps made an inadvertent misstatement (cf. Babbitt v. United Farm Workers, 442 U.S. 289, 301, 99 S.Ct. 2301, 2310, 60 L.Ed.2d 895 (1979)) and cases in which the official has engaged in intentional lying in order to bring about the injury. A ruling along these lines would, however, constitute new law. Like the majority, I cannot find any clearly established doctrine that the sort of governmental interference alleged here, which is analogous to the common law tort of “injurious falsehood” or malicious interference with a contractual relationship (see 2 F. Harper, F. James & O. GRAY, The Law of Torts 297 (1986); Restatement (Seoond) of Torts § 767 (1979)), violates the First Amendment. I therefore concur in the judgment that the defendants are immune from liability under Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982).