491 U.S. 524, 109 S.Ct. 2603, 105 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989)
The Florida Star is a weekly newspaper which serves the community of Jacksonville, Florida, and which has an average circulation of approximately 18,000 copies.1 A regular feature of the newspaper is its Police Reports section that contains brief articles describing local criminal incidents under police investigation.2
On October 20, 1983, appellee B. J. F. reported to the Duval County, Florida, Sheriff's Department that she had been robbed and sexually assaulted by an unknown assailant.3 The Department prepared a report on the incident which identified B. J. F. by her full name.4 The Department then placed the report in its pressroom without restricting access to either the pressroom or the reports made available therein.5
A Florida Star reporter-trainee sent to the pressroom copied the police report verbatim, including B. J. F.'s full name, on a blank duplicate of the Department's forms.6 A Florida Star reporter then prepared a one-paragraph article about the crime, derived entirely from the trainee's copy of the police report.7 The article included B. J. F.'s full name and appeared in the Robberies subsection of the Police Reports section on October 29, 1983.8 In printing B. J. F.'s full name, The Florida Star violated its internal policy of not publishing the names of sexual offense victims.9
On September 26, 1984, B. J. F. filed suit in the Circuit Court of Duval County against the Department and The Florida Star, alleging that these parties negligently violated § 794.03.10 Before trial, the Department settled with B. J. F. for $2,500.11
At the ensuing daylong trial, B. J. F. testified that she had suffered emotional distress from the publication of her name.12 She stated that she had heard about the article from fellow workers and acquaintances and that her mother had received several threatening phone calls from a man who stated that he would rape B. J. F. again.13 These events forced B. J. F. to change her phone number and residence, to seek police protection, and to obtain mental health counseling.14 In defense, The Florida Star put forth evidence indicating that the newspaper had learned B. J. F.'s name from the incident report released by the Department and that the newspaper's violation of its internal rule against publishing the names of sexual offense victims was inadvertent.15 At the close of the newspaper's defense, the judge granted B. J. F.'s motion for a directed verdict on the issue of negligence, finding the newspaper per se negligent based upon its violation of § 794.03.16 The jury awarded B. J. F. $75,000 in compensatory damages and $25,000 in punitive damages.17 The First District Court of Appeal affirmed in a three-paragraph per curiam opinion, stating that the directed verdict for B. J. F. had been properly entered because, under § 794.03, a rape victim's name is of a private nature and not to be published as a matter of law.18 The Supreme Court of Florida denied discretionary review.19 The Florida Star appealed to this Court, which noted probable jurisdiction and now reverses.20
Whether imposing civil liability on a newspaper for publishing the name of a sexual offense victim obtained from a publicly released police report violates the First Amendment?21
If a newspaper lawfully obtains truthful information about a matter of public significance then state officials may not constitutionally punish publication of the information, absent a need to further a state interest of the highest order.22
Yes. Appellant lawfully obtained B. J. F.'s name from the police report.23 The news article concerned a matter of public significance, namely the commission and investigation of a violent crime reported to authorities.24 Imposing liability under Florida Stat. § 794.03 fails to advance a state interest of the highest order because the government itself disseminated the name through an unrestricted pressroom report.25
The negligence per se standard imposes automatic liability without regard to context or scienter.26 The statute's restriction solely to instruments of mass communication leaves other forms of dissemination unaddressed.27
Imposing civil liability on The Florida Star for publishing B. J. F.'s name violates the First Amendment.28
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Scalia concurred in the judgment on the separate ground that the statute cannot protect an interest of the highest order when it leaves appreciable damage to that interest unprohibited.29 He noted that the victim's discomfort from private spread of the information would be at least as great as from media publication.30 Yet the law imposes no prohibition on oral or written gossip among friends and acquaintances.31
Scalia further observed that the statute's limit to mass publication is not credible if the goal is protection from a rapist still at large, as the jury instructions did not require any finding on that point.32 This renders the law one that society imposes on the press but not upon itself.33
Justice White dissented, contending that Cox Broadcasting, Oklahoma Publishing, and Daily Mail do not control or support the result because those cases involved judicial records open as a matter of state law or information already made generally public.34 Here Florida law expressly forbade disclosure of the victim's name and posted signs indicating the information was not for publication.35 He argued that the government release was not without qualification.36
The jury found reckless indifference rather than mere negligence, satisfying any constitutional fault standard.37 The statute's focus on mass communication is a permissible tailoring to the greater harm posed by widespread distribution rather than an unconstitutional underinclusion.38 White concluded that the decision erodes the tort of publication of private facts by holding that protecting a rape victim's privacy is not a state interest of the highest order.39