Word: hutchinsons
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...Hutchinson vs. Proxmire and Wolston vs. Reader's Digest Association (1979), Time Inc. vs. Firestone (1976). A scientist whose publicly funded research had been ridiculed as wasteful by a U.S. Senator, a former Government translator who had been cited for contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Soviet espionage, and a prominent Florida socialite embroiled in a highly publicized divorce were all held not to be "public figures" as libel plaintiffs. The court ruled that someone must "thrust" himself into a prominent public controversy in order to become a public figure. In effect, these decisions made...
...June, which held that employers could give job preference to blacks to remedy "manifest racial imbalance" in the work force, the busing cases signal the court's strong support for affirmative action. For blacks, at least, the message is clear. Says Georgetown University Law Center Professor Dennis Hutchinson: "With the Warren Court you could say, 'Blacks win.' Now you can begin to say of the Burger Court, 'Blacks...
...case, Senator William Proxmire ridiculed a scientist, Ronald Hutchinson, claiming that he had wasted taxpayers' dollars with his publicly funded research. Hutchinson had received more than $500,000 to study aggression in monkeys in order to help the Navy and NASA better select crewmen for submarines and spacecraft. Calling the project "monkey business," Proxmire announced in news releases and newsletters that he had honored it with one of his monthly "Golden Fleece Awards." Hutchinson sued him for $8 million in damages for libel. Another case involved a man named Ilya Wolston, a former State Department interpreter, who had been...
...Both Hutchinson and Wolston were declared to be public figures by lower courts, and both libel suits were summarily dismissed. But the high court reversed those decisions. Neither man had "thrust" himself into a public controversy in order to affect its outcome, ruled the court...
...footnote in the Hutchinson decision also cautioned judges against automatically throwing out libel cases brought by clear-cut public figures. The defendant's state of mind-the key element in actual malice-"does not readily lend itself to summary disposition," wrote Chief Justice Warren Burger. Just two months ago, the high court ruled in Herbert vs. Lando that libel plaintiffs can probe a reporter's state of mind. This may raise questions of fact that only a jury, not a judge, can decide...