Similarly, in his 2015 opinion in Abbas v. Foreign Policy Group, LLC, 783 F.3d 1328 (D.C. Cir. The case grew out of police actions in Montgomery, Alabama, during the civil rights movement.

In the early ’60s, the New York Times (NYT) published a full-page advertisement by the supporters of Martin Luther King, Jr, criticizing the Montgomery Alabama police, and specifically L.B. Prior to the landmark 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, defamation (libel and slander) was considered a matter of state law.

Sullivan, the Montgomery Police commissioner, for the department’s mistreatment of Civil Rights protesters. The Montgomery city commissioner who oversaw police sued the New York Times over an advertisement that alleged abuses by police.

The high court’s ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan forced a larger burden upon public officials pursuing libel or slander cases against the media. The landmark New York Times v. Sullivan case led to new protections against publishers who, in their criticism of government, are sued by government officials for libel. Sullivan sued the paper for defamation, and the trial court ruled in his favor. Case summary for New York Times Co. v. Sullivan: Sullivan was a public official who brought a claim against New York Times Co. alleging defamation. Times v. Sullivan has had an impact on just about every free speech and free press case for the past half-century, influencing everything from how … The trial court told the jury that the article contained statements which constituted slander per se and Sullivan was awarded $500,000 in damages. Defamation cases can hinder that unfettered interchange.
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, legal case in which, on March 9, 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously (9–0) that, for a libel suit to be successful, the complainant must prove that the offending statement was made with “ ‘actual malice’—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that the freedom of speech protections in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restrict the ability of American public officials to sue for defamation.

Why is New York Times v Sullivan so important? Raising Doubts Protected. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 269 (1964) (internal quotation mark omitted). The NYT … The ad …