Hustler Magazine v. Falwell
1988 United States Supreme Court case
Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that parodies of public figures, even those intending to cause emotional distress, are protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
In the case, Hustler magazine ran a full-page parody ad against televangelist and political commentator Jerry Falwell Sr., depicting him as an incestuous drunk who had sex with his mother in an outhouse. The ad was marked as a parody that was "not to be taken seriously". In response, Falwell sued Hustler and the magazine's publisher Larry Flynt for intentional infliction of emotional distress, libel, and invasion of privacy, but Flynt defended the ad's publication as protected by the First Amendment.
In an 8–0 decision, the Court held that the emotional distress inflicted on Falwell by the ad was not a sufficient reason to deny the First Amendment protection to speech that is critical of public officials and public figures.
Constitutional limits to defamation liability cannot be circumvented for claims arising from speech by asserting an alternative theory of tort liability such as intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Background
Known for its explicit pictures of nude women, crude humor, and political satire, Hustler, a monthly magazine published by Larry Flynt, printed a parody ad in its November 1983 issue that targeted Jerry Falwell, a prominent Christian fundamentalist televangelist and conservative political commentator.
The parody was mimicking the popular advertising campaigns that Campari, an Italian liqueur, was running at the time that featured brief contrived interviews with various celebrities that always started with a question about their "first time", a double-entendre intended to give the impression that the celebrities were talking about their first sexual encounters before the reveal at the end that the discussion had actually concerned the celebrities' first time tasting Campari.
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