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Describe defamation in media laws
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Hustler Magazine vs. Jerry Farewell
In 1983, Hustler Magazine published a parody of Campari Liqueur that contained the name and picture of Reverend Jerry Falwell. The parody was entitled “Jerry Falwell talks about his first time.” Campari Liqueur in reality did have an advertisement, which featured various celebrities talking about their “first time”, but by the end of the advertisement, it was obvious they were talking about the “first time” they sampled Campari. In Hustler’s parody, Jerry Falwell is “interviewed” and he states that his “first time” was with his drunken mother in an outhouse. On the bottom of the parody, Hustler Magazine added in small print "ADD PARADOY NOT TO BE TAKE SERIOUSLY." The magazine's table of contents also lists the ad as "Fiction; Ad and Personality Parody."
Jerry Falwell sued soon after the issue was published. Personally, I think if you are a public figure, like Jerry Falwell was, you are automatically putting yourself up for public humiliation. It’s just a price to pay for being famous. I do however think that Hustler Magazine went a step too far in saying that Jerry Falwell lost his virginity to his mother. Jerry Falwell sued Hustler Magazine for libel, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional stress. In 1984, the U.S. District Court for Virginia's Western District dismissed the invasion of privacy claim because Falwell is a public figure. Hustler was found guilty of inflicting emotional distress and Falwell was awarded $200,000. The court ruled against Falwell on the libel claim.
The lower court found that the ad parody was not reasonably believable. Chief Justice William Rehnquist said the ad was a satire, and to allow a jury to punish satire would be to allow jurors to decide a verdict based on personal taste. In 1988, the case was taken to the Supreme Court where they reversed the emotional distress verdict previously granted to Jerry Falwell. The Supreme Court reversed the verdict because the First and the Fourteenth Amendment prohibit public figures, such as Jerry Falwell, from recovering damages for emotional distress.
I think that Hustler Magazine is attended for an audience who does not take offence in crude jokes or comments. If you read something in an adult magazine, it should not be taken seriously. Another thing that bewilders me is how Jerry Falwell found out about the parody.
The court for this case found that the search and seizure of the stereo violated the fourth and fourteenth Amendments. The Decision was 6 votes for Hicks and 3 votes against.
The case Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory did in fact uphold the jury's findings that employees who are on the older side had lost their jobs through a layoff plan. This discrimination was unintentional. However, the policy did have an impact that was deemed discriminatory and the firm could have reached its goals through a different method that would not effectively discriminate. The reason for the suit had to do with the fact that thirty of thirty-one people who were laid off were over the age of forty. There were 26 plaintiffs who did go to trial while some of the others settled with the company on their own. In the end, the jury awarded plaintiffs a total award of $4.2. The case was appealed and at the time, Knolls argued that the law really does not allow disparate impact claims, citing Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604 (1993), where a claim involved disparate treatment and what was needed was proof of intentional discrimination. The Court claims that the Hazen Paper Court had not resolved the appropriate use of ADEA in terms of disparate impact. It was further stated that the decisions to come from other circuits do not necessarily overrule prior cases. The idea that disparate impact claims may not be allowed under ADEA is therefore rejected.
The State court of Appeals affirmed that Johnson was in the wrong, however, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed.
In prior cases regarding parody, the court has adopted different statutory interpretations. In Harley Davidson, Inc. v Grottanelli, 164 F.3d 806 (2nd Cir. 1998), the defendant like Pets, Inc., admitted to purposively creating an association with the plaintiff’s mark, the wordings used by the CEO of Pets, Inc. are not as explicit as that of Grottanelli, however, he clearly states that he designed Petpel No. 13 to evoke fun of Chapel. His statement
Texas v. Johnson expanded the rights of symbolic speech and freedom of expression under the First Amendment and was presented as a precedence for future cases along with influencing the final decision on the revision of California, in 1931, was seen as a violation of the First Amendment after Stromberg was arrested for displaying a red flag as a sign of resistance against the government. This was the first declaration that symbolic speech is protected under the First Amendment (“Timeline of Flag...”). In 1943, the issue of a law requiring people to salute the flag was raised in the West Virginia v. Barnett court case. In this case, the importance of freedom of expression under the First Amendment was highlighted by Justice Jackson (“Supreme Court Cases”). In 1969, Street v New York it was decided that no state is able to convict a person based on verbal comments insulting the flag.
The court stated the appellant’s statements were false concerned issues that were important to the public’s attention. The statements were neither shown nor could be presumed to interfere with the appellant’s performance of his teaching duties or the school’s operation (Oyez, n.d.). In the matter of false statements, the Supreme Court looked back at New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964). The school board was unable to prove the statements were malicious in nature.
The court found Westboro Baptist Church liable for millions of dollars on the tort charges of intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and civil conspiracy. Westboro fought the verdict by claiming it was “grossly excessive
The majority opinion of the court was the most accurate for this case because of the fact that Johnson was expressing his personal beliefs and opinions. The 5 to 4 decision was the most constitutional and well thought through judgment. Johnson was not threatening the United States in any way, let alone the people of the United States. Although society may find expressive events hostile, the government cannot ban it because it’s expressive conduct and it underlies in one’s First Amendment rights. The majority opinion was the most constitutionally accurate, but one may think, does our Constitution need revising?
The 1996 movie, The People vs. Larry Flynt, is a story about Larry Flynt, owner of Hustler Magazine, getting in trouble with legal issues due to his magazines containing sexual explicit content. Larry had previous history of owning many strip clubs throughout Ohio, which initially led him into producing these magazines. People throughout the country attempted to stop Larry from producing these magazines saying that it violated many “community standards” but that didn’t stop him and he was willing to speak up for his rights. Later, Jerry Falwell sues Larry for publishing a parody of him having a sexual experience with his mother. The trial court found Falwell and his intentional infliction of emotional distress claim to be true and
This is indeed a touchy subject. This particular court case is one that has sparked a great deal of debate and one that requires some understanding of Miller v. California and New York v. Farber. Two semesters ago, my Media Law class spent a little time reviewing each of these cases plus the one we are discussing and even after doing so, I still find this ruling a bit disturbing.
On May 4, 1987 the Supreme Court released their 5-4 decision. The court had examined “whether in a prosecution for the sale of allegedly obscene materials, the jury may be instructed to apply community standards in deciding the value question.” The majority included Rehnquist, White, Powell, O’Connor and Scalia. It concluded: “Just as the ideas a work represents need not obtain majority approval to merit protection, neither, insofar as the First Amendment is concerned, does the value of the work vary from community to community based on the degree of local acceptance won.” The Court observed that only the first two prongs of the Miller Test were discussed in terms of applying community standards because they are questions of fact and therefore, subject to review under community standards. However, failure to mention community standards in the value portion of the test was not an error, but and emphasis that such measures were inept. The serious value element is subject to judicial review and is ultimately a question of the law; because a question of the law should not vary from community to community, a national or objective standard must pertain. The Court concluded, “The proper inquiry is not whether an ordinary member
Phelps, welcomed the notion that members of the Westboro Baptist Church wanted to use their First Amendment rights. However, Justice Alito maintained that the manner in which the church expressed themselves does not constitute First Amendment protections because “[t]hey first issued a press release and thus turned Matthew’s funeral into a tumultuous media event. They then appeared at the church, approached as closely as they could without trespassing, and launched a malevolent verbal attack on Matthew and his family at a time of acute emotional vulnerability.” Justice Alito argued that the picketing done by the church caused Snyder grave emotional distress and damage given that Snyder was mentally vulnerable at a moment where a father loses their son. Justice Alito argued that neither Snyder nor his son were public figures. Therefore, Justice Alito pointed out that the church chose to exploit the emotional vulnerability of a private individual. According to Rosalie Levinson of the Suffolk University Law Review, the Court’s ruling on Snyder v. Phelps shows that “the government’s only valid interest is in ensuring peace and tranquility, whereas the real harm posed by fighting words, including targeted hate speech, is not physical violence, but the emotional damage inflicted by the words themselves.” In other words, Levinson is suggesting that the Court’s decision has made it so that individuals can express themselves to the point of inflicting severe emotional harm to others, so long as the expression is lawful and remains peaceful. Levinson articulates that this notion is troublesome considering that “[h]ate speech . . . is often targeted at the least powerful, most vulnerable segments of our society.” In the view of Levinson, mental harm due to hate speech and verbal dehumanization of individuals, which leads to a negative effect on that individual’s physical health with regards to heightened heart
of women, but I have not heard him do it of late" (A Scandal in
On December 17, 1999, in Free Speech Coalition v. Reno, the Ninth Circuit struck down the law as a content-based restriction on protected speech not in furtherance of any compelling governmental interest because the prohibited images are not of actual children. According to that C...
“Magazine Ads of the 50s through the 80s.” BlogSpot, N.p. 8 August 2008. Web. 4 October 2009.