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Supreme Court· 6/19/1985

McDonald v. Smith

Citations

  • 472 U.S. 479
  • 105 S. Ct. 2787
  • 86 L. Ed. 2d 384
  • 1985 U.S. LEXIS 112
  • 53 U.S.L.W. 4789

About this case

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1985 United States Supreme Court case

McDonald v. Smith, 472 U.S. 479 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the right to petition does not provide absolute immunity to petitioners; it is subject to the same restrictions as other First Amendment rights.[1]

Background

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In 1981, David Smith brought a libel suit against Robert McDonald claiming that Mcdonald had included knowing and malicious lies in a letter to the President concerning Smith's possible appointment as a United States attorney .[2] Smith claimed that these libelous claims damaged both his chances of appointment and his reputation and career. McDonald first had the case removed to federal court on the basis of diversity of citizenship . Since the alleged libel was contained in a letter (petition) to the President, he moved for judgment on the pleadings on the grounds that the Petition Clause of the First Amendment protected his right to express his views without limitation as long as it was part of a constitutionally protected petition.

Opinion of the Court

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The issue before the Court was whether the right to petition the government granted absolute immunity from liability.

The Court decided 8–0 (Justice Powell took no part in the case) that the right to petition was subject to the same legal limitations that the rights to speech and the press are as previously decided in _New York Times Co. v. Sullivan _ (1964). Therefore, claims made in the original letter, or in any similar petition, were and are subject to libel lawsuits to be judged on their merits. Chief Justice Burger delivered the opinion of the Court, in which all other members joined. Justice Brennan wrote a concurrence, joined by Justices Marshall and Blackmun .

References

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  1. ↑ Pring, George William; Canan, Penelope (1996). SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out . Temple University Press. pp. 22–23. ISBN  978-1-56639-369-0 .
  2. ↑ California (State). California. Court of Appeal (4th Appellate District). Division 2. Records and Briefs: D004129, Other . pp. 12–13.

External links

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U.S. Supreme Court Assemble and Petition Clause case law

**First Amendment to the United States Constitution **

Freedom of assembly

Freedom of association

Freedom to petition

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Editorial context from Wikipedia (CC-BY-SA 4.0).

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

  • noting that, “filing a complaint in court is a form of petitioning activity; but ‘baseless litigation is not immunized by the First Amendment right to petition.’ ”
  • the right of access to the courts is an aspect of the First Amendment right to petition
  • petition clause does not grant absolute immunity to libel action

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Burger, Powell, Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun

Read full opinion on CourtListener

Cited by

278 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

16 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

Other cases named McDonald v. Smith

20 other CourtListener records share this case name.

Sourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).

This is legal information, not legal advice. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always verify current law with official sources and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on your specific situation.