Business law fundamentals and applications

Business Law

In 1960 an advertisement was run by the New York Times that was paid for by civil rights activists. The ad criticized the department of the police openly in the city of Montgomery for how it treated protestors of civil rights. The descriptions in the advertisement were mostly accurate but there were some false statements. L.B Sullivan the police commissioner was offended and sued New York Times in Alabama court. Even though Sullivan's name was not mentioned in the article he still went ahead to sue the newspaper. The argument held by Sullivan was that the advertisement had ruined his reputation and libeling him at the same time. He demanded that the retraction of the paper (Hall, & Urofsky, 2011).

The issue in this case was freedom of press that is whether the first amendment has limits to the power of the state to give libel damages that have been brought up by public officials against those who criticize the official duties of the press. The court ruled in favor of Sullivan as it found that the news paper had represented Sullivan and the police department falsely. The New York Times lost its appeal in the Supreme court of Alabama and went ahead to take its case to the supreme court in the United States. They argued that the advertisement was not intended to spoil Sullivan's reputation and that it was protected under the first amendment.

The ruling of the United States supreme curt was unanimously in favor of the New York Times .the court stated that the right of publishing all statements is under the protection of the first amendment. The court also stated that so as to prove libel, a public office must be bale to show that what was said against them was done maliciously that is, "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless regard to the truth" ( Hall, & Urofsky, 2011).The legal principles in this case are that Americans have the privilege of speaking their mind although not always with perfectly good taste on all institution of the public the first amendment protects abstract discussion and vigorous advocacy. The legal bias in this case was the court ruled that the first and fourteen amendments usually require a public official who is suing for defamation to prove that the defamatory comments alleged were made with actual malice (Hrcr.org, 2009). This means that with knowledge that it was not true or with reckless disregard of whether it was not true or true. Otherwise the reasoning of the court was that public debates on issues of importance would be made less. Citizens have the right to criticize officials holding public offices. This is without any protection provided for errors arising from public debates; people will get engaged in self-censorship as opposed to speaking out important public issues as they will fear of getting a libel suit.Therefore when this case is considered against a background of profound national commitment to the principle that any debate on public issues should wide-open, robust and uninhibited and that It might include sharp attacks on public officials and government.