Florida Star v. B. J. F.

Florida Star v. B. J. F.

Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 29, 1989
Decided June 29, 1989
Full case name Florida Star v. B. J. F.
Docket nos. 87-329
Citations 491 U.S. 521 (more)
109 S. Ct. 2603
105 L. Ed. 2d 443
Prior history The Florida Star v. B.J.F., 530 So. 2d 286 (1988) Supreme Court of Florida;
Florida Star v. B.J.F., 499 So. 2d 883 (1986) Fla. Dist. Court of Appeals
Holding
Florida Stat. § 794.03 is unconstitutional to the extent it makes the truthful reporting of information that was a matter of public record unlawful, as it violates the First Amendment
Court membership
Case opinions
Majority Marshall, joined by Brennan, Blackmun, Stevens, and Kennedy
Concurrence Scalia
Dissent White, joined by Rehnquist and O'Connor
Laws applied
First Amendment of the United States Constitution

Florida Star v. B. J. F., 491 U.S. 521 (1989)[1] was a United States Supreme Court case involving freedom of the press. After a newspaper erroneously reported the full name of a rape victim it got from a police report, the victim sued for damages. State law made it illegal for a publication to print a rape victim's name, and the victim was awarded damages. On appeal, the Supreme Court ruled the imposition of damages for truthfully publishing public information violates the First Amendment.

Contents

Facts of the case

B.J.F. was a woman who reported to the Duval County Sheriff's department that she had been robbed and sexually assaulted. The Sheriff's Department put the details of what happened, including the victim's full name, in the general crime report for the county, which is placed in its press room and made available to anyone who bothers to read it. A trainee reporter for the Florida Star, the local newspaper of Jacksonville, Florida, copied the item verbatim. A Florida Star reporter then included the item in the October 29, 1983 issue of the paper, but erroneously included the victim's name in violation of the newspaper's internal policy not to identify rape victims.

On September 26, 1984, B.J.F. sued both the Sheriff's Department and the newspaper for violating Florida Stat. § 794.03, which makes it unlawful to "print, publish, or broadcast . . . in any instrument of mass communication" the name of the victim of a sexual offense. The Sheriff's Department settled, paying the victim US$2,500, the newspaper would not. The trial court rejected the newspaper's defense that § 794.03 was unconstitutional, and the jury awarded B. J. F. $75,000 in compensatory damages and $25,000 in punitive damages.

The First District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court verdict, the Supreme Court of Florida denied discretionary review, and the United States Supreme Court reversed.

Legal issue

Is it permissible to impose damages upon a newspaper for truthfully publishing facts which are publicly known?

Decision of the Court

The court decided the facts in this case were not the same as those in Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469 (1975), where a television station had obtained and reported the name of a rape victim from open court records, and the Supreme Court found the law there unconstitutional. The court decided that the law was unconstitutional, but on much narrower grounds. First, the law made no effort to punish any party who disseminated the name of a rape victim except an "instrument of mass communication" which the law did not define. This meant that the most vicious gossip who spread the details around was not subject to the law, but supposedly a newspaper was. Second, the law basically punishes a newspaper which truthfully prints information which it had legitimately gotten from a government agency.

Reasoning of the Court

While a newspaper could be punished for truthfully reporting facts which were not public knowledge or which it got unlawfully (the court referred back to prior cases where it gave examples of material a newspaper might legally be punished for publishing, such as the dates and times of troop ship movements during war), it is unconstitutional for a government agency to impose punishment upon a newspaper for truthfully publishing information that the government had in fact released publicly.

Disposition

The judgement in favor of B.J.F. was reversed and the newspaper was found not liable.

See also

References

  1. ^ 491 U.S. 521 (Text of the opinion on Findlaw.com.)