| Lamont v. Postmaster General | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Supreme Court of the United States |
||||||
| Argued April 26, 1965 Decided May 24, 1965 |
||||||
| Full case name | Corliss Lamont, dba Basic Pamphlets, Appellant v. Postmaster General of the United States | |||||
| Citations | 381 U.S. 301 (more) 85 S.Ct. 1493; 14 L.Ed.2d 398 |
|||||
| Holding | ||||||
| The Postal Service and Federal Employees Salary Act is unconstitutional, since it imposes on the addressee an affirmative obligation which amounts to an unconstitutional limitation of his rights under the First Amendment. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
|
||||||
| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority | Douglas | |||||
| Concurrence | Brennan, joined by Goldberg | |||||
| Concurrence | Harlan | |||||
| White took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | ||||||
Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301 (1965), was a landmark First Amendment Supreme Court case, in which the ruling of the Supreme Court struck down § 305(a) of the Postal Service and Federal Employees Salary Act of 1962 – a federal statute requiring the Postmaster General to detain and deliver only upon the addressee's request unsealed foreign mailings of "communist political propaganda." Under the stricken code, a recipient of material deemed "political propaganda" was required to indicate their intent to receive such materials before they were delivered, accepting the material by indicating a desire to do so on a card provided by the Post Office.[1] The card states that, if it not with the addressee's name and consent to receiving the material, it would be returned within 20 days, the Post Office assumed that the addressee does not want that publication or any similar one in the future.[1]
The Court held that
the Act, as construed and applied, is unconstitutional, since it imposes on the addressee an affirmative obligation which amounts to an unconstitutional limitation of his rights under the First Amendment.[1]