JEFFREY M. MASSON v. NEW YORKER MAGAZINE, INC., ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. AND JANET MALCOLM

Whether a permanent injunction as a remedy in a defamation action, preventing all future speech about an admitted public figure, violates the First Amendment.

Whether the First Amendment requires a separate "opinion" privilege that restricts the application of state libel laws.

Can a public figure recover damages for emotional distress because of an offensive parody?

Can a court, in the context of a summary judgment request, award summary judgment in a libel action if the moving party had no evidence that a reasonable jury might disbelieve its opponent's claim?

Was Consumer Union's article written with "actual malice," thereby placing it outside the First Amendment's freedom of speech protections?

To what extent does a publisher (monthly newsletter) have a constitutional privilege against liability for defamation of a private citizen?

Whether a Florida statute that afforded a right to reply to personal attacks on political candidates by newspapers violated the First Amendment.

Whether a teacher's dismissal by the Board of Education for publishing a letter in a newspaper critical of the Board's allocation of funds violated his freedom of speech under the First Amendment.

Are public figures subject to the actual malice standard for libel as articulated in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964)?

Whether a newspaper column asking a series of questions that could be read as defamatory is protected by the First Amendment, as articulated by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964).

Whether the freedom of speech provisions of the First and Fourteenth Amendments protect a criminal suspect who makes a false statement about a police officer without "actual malice."

Whether Alabama's libel laws unconstitutionally infringed on the First Amendment's freedom of speech and press protections.

Whether the distribution of a racist leaflet, in violation of a state criminal libel statute, was protected under the First Amendment.

Whether a Minnesota statute that allowed "abatement"—an injunction against future publication—of printed material deemed to be a public nuisance constituted an unconstitutional prior restraint in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.