# Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps

> Supreme Court of the United States · April 21, 1986 · 475 U.S. 767

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9842074

## Case

- **Full name:** PHILADELPHIA NEWSPAPERS, INC., Et Al. v. HEPPS Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** April 21, 1986
- **Citations:** 475 U.S. 767; 12 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1977; 54 U.S.L.W. 4373; 106 S. Ct. 1558; 89 L. Ed. 2d 783; 1986 U.S. LEXIS 97
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Brennan
- **Judges:** O'Connor, Stevens, Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, Powell, Ste, Burger, White, Rehnquist
- **Cited by:** 744 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9842074

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating, “[0]n matters of public concern, ... a private-figure plaintiff must bear the burden of showing that the speech at issue is false before recovering damages for defamation from a media defendant,” and holding that common-law presumption that defamatory speech is false …
- holding that, in a case where a “private figure” brings a defamation claim based -on a matter “of public concern,” the “common law’s rule on falsity—that the defendant must bear the burden of proving truth— must ... fall ... to a constitutional requirement that the plaintiff b…
- holding that “the common law presumption that defamatory speech is false cannot stand when a plaintiff seeks damages against a media defendant for speech of public concern,” and stating that “the First Amendment requires that we protect some falsehood in order to protect speec…
- stating that if the defamatory speech is of public concern and the defendant is a member of the media, the plaintiff has the burden of proving falsity, but reserving the question of who has the burden if the defendant is not a member of the media
- holding that under First Amendment, when private-figure plaintiff files defamation suit against newspaper, which “published speech of public concern,” plaintiff must prove that challenged statements are false

## Opinion text

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Blackmun joins, concurring.
I believe that where allegedly defamatory speech is of public concern, the First Amendment requires that the plaintiff, *780 whether public official, public figure, or private individual, prove the statements at issue to be false, and thus join the Court’s opinion. Cf. Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U. S. 29 (1971). I write separately only to note that, while the Court reserves the question whether the rule it announces applies to nonmedia defendants, ante, at 779, n. 4, I adhere to my view that such a distinction is “irreconcilable with the fundamental First Amendment principle that ‘[t]he inherent worth of . . . speech in terms of its capacity for informing the public does not depend upon the identity of the source, whether corporation, association, union, or individual.’” Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U. S. 749, 781 (1985) (Brennan, J., dissenting) (quoting First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 777 (1978)).

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9842074. Public record. Not legal advice.