US Supreme Court Affirms New York Times v. Sullivan Protecting A Free Press from Retribution from Public Figures

The United States Supreme Court reaffirmed its commitment to a free press and on Monday declined to take up a case challenging long-standing protections for the press under Amendment 1 of the United States Constitution.  

In a case filed against The Associated Press, Billionaire Steve Wynn had sought to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan, a landmark Supreme Court decision that set a high legal bar for what constitutes defamation against a public figure in the United States. 

The Nevada Supreme Court upheld a ruling tossing out Wynn’s lawsuit against the AP, finding the news organization had published “an article in a good-faith effort to inform their readers regarding an issue of clear public interest.”

Nevada Supreme Court Justice Ron Parraguirre cited the actual malice standard and found that Wynn, a public figure, hadn’t shown convincing evidence that cleared it.

The 1964 precedent bolsters the ability of the press to hold wealthy and high-powered individuals as well as public officials and those in visible government local, state and federal positions to account. To win a defamation suit, a public figure must show that the outlet either published something it knew to be false, or went ahead with reckless disregard for whatever the truth may be  a standard known as “actual malice.”

In United States defamation law, actual malice is a legal requirement imposed upon public officials or public figures when they file suit for libel (defamatory printed or online communications). Compared to other individuals who are less well known to the general public, public officials and public figures from small village school superintendents to billionaires each are held to a higher standard of proof to succeed in a defamation lawsuit. 

Justice William Brennan Jr. argued that in order to win a defamation case, public figures must prove that journalists published details with “actual malice”—as in, a gross recklessness or disregard for the truth.

The U.S. Supreme Court adopted the actual malice standard in its landmark 1964 ruling in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan,in which the Warren Court held that:

The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a Federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with 'actual malice'—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.

The high court has thrown out previous attempts to upend the libel standard. In 2022, the Supreme Court refused to hear a similar challenge to the “actual malice” definition when Coral Ridge Ministries Media sued the Southern Poverty Law Center for listing them as an “anti-LGBTQ hate group.”

Ultimately, the “actual malice” standard for public figures and officials is intended to deter lawsuits from people who don’t need to rely on the legal system in order to correct or address negative coverage. Instead, people and government officials in power can call for news conferences. 

Times v. Sullivan also protects press organizations from people with enormous wealth or government entities with unlimited resources who could potentially leverage their financial resources in order to silence criticism of their behavior.

The high court denied the billionaire, Steve Wynn's request for its review without comment, thus reinforcing its commitment first amendment rights and protections of a free and independent press. 

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