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NEAR v. MINNESOTA EX REL. OLSON, COUNTY ATTORNEY

No. 91

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

283 U.S. 697; 51 S. Ct. 625; 75 L. Ed. 1357; 1931 U.S. LEXIS 175; 1 Media L. Rep.
1001

January 30, 1931, Argued

June 1, 1931, Decided

PRIOR HISTORY: APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF MINNESOTA.

APPEAL from a decree which sustained an injunction abating the publication of a periodical as malicious, scandalous,
and defamatory, and restraining future publication. The suit was based on a Minnesota statute. See also s. c., 174
Minn. 457; 219 N. W. 770.

DISPOSITION: 179 Minn. 40; 228 N. W. 326, reversed.

CASE SUMMARY:

PROCEDURAL POSTURE: Defendant newspaper publisher sought review of the decision of the Supreme Court of
Minnesota which upheld the validity of Minn. Stat. §§ 10123-1 to 10123-3, resulting in an injunction against the
newspaper publisher from printing its newspaper based on claims that it was malicious, lewd, and defamatory.

OVERVIEW: The newspaper publisher argued that the statute unfairly denied it liberty of press because an injunction
issued under the statute would restrain any future newspaper publication. The Court found that the first section of the
statute provided for the abatement of a malicious, scandalous, and defamatory newspaper against any person engaged in
the business of regularly producing, publishing or circulating, having in possession, selling or giving away a newspaper.
The Court held that the liberty of the press was safeguarded by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The right was not absolute, and the state could punish its abuse. The right to a free press could not be lost by exercising
the right. The language of the statute at issue placed a prior restraint on the newspaper publisher to avoid language that
might not be protected, thereby denying him the right of publication. This freedom, by virtue of its very reason for its
existence, did not depend on proof of truth.

OUTCOME: The court reversed the judgment of the Minnesota Supreme Court, holding that the statute as applied
against the newspaper publisher infringed the freedom of the press guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The
court's decision focused on the statute and not on the truth of the charges contained in the periodical.

CORE TERMS: newspaper, periodical, defamatory, scandalous, nuisance, malicious, libel, motive, edition, justifiable,
injunction, public officers, publisher, publish, contempt, scandal, regularly, immunity, assault, official misconduct,
dereliction, circulating, guaranty, devoted, grand jury, gangster, customarily, suppression, conducting, enjoined