Encyclopedia > Hustler Magazine v. Falwell

  Article Content

Hustler Magazine v. Falwell

Hustler Magazine, Inc. et al. v. Jerry Falwell (485 U.S. 46) is a U.S. Supreme Court case that was decided in 1988. It allowed the press to parody public figures, in this case, Larry Flynt's sex magazine Hustler to parody Christian conservative Jerry Falwell. The Court held that a public figure could not use state tort law, in this case the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress, to make a claim against a publisher that had subjected the public figure to parody.

The reasoning of the court was based on the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech, which was held to override a state's interest in protecting public figures from intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The chain of events leading to this case is described in the article on Jerry Falwell.

External links



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Lake Ronkonkoma, New York

... The population density is 1,549.2/km² (4,010.1/mi²). There are 6,949 housing units at an average density of 546.4/km² (1,414.4/mi²). The racial ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 46.3 ms