Sandra Susan Merritt v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., et al.

Whether this Court’s decision in Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988), which precludes publication damages without meeting the constitutional requirements for defamation liability, prohibits a party from avoiding the First Amendment’s Free Speech limitations on defamation claims by using Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U.S. 663 (1991), to recover publication-dependent damages under “generally applicable” laws.

Whether the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause prevents the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which was enacted to combat the infiltration of legitimate commercial enterprises by traditional “organized crime,” from being applied to undercover newsgathering journalists whose purpose is to document and expose what they reasonably believe to be unlawful conduct.

Whether the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause protects newsgathering journalists, who operate under an alias to document and expose what they reasonably believe to be unlawful conduct, from being subjected to punitive liability for “fraud.”