Valentine v. Chrestensen
| Valentine v. Chrestensen | ||||||
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 Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued March 31, 1942 Decided April 13, 1942 |
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| Full case name | Valentine, Police Commissioner of the City of New York v. Chrestensen | |||||
| Citations | 316 U.S. 52 (more)
62 S. Ct. 920; 86 L. Ed. 1262; 1942 U.S. LEXIS 725; 1 Media L. Rep. 1907
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| Prior history | 122 F.2d 511, reversed. | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| Commercial speech is not protected under the First Amendment. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority | Roberts, joined by unanimous | |||||
| Laws applied | ||||||
| U.S. Const. amend. I | ||||||
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Overruled by
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| Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council (1976) | ||||||
Valentine v. Chrestensen, 316 U.S. 52 (1942), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that commercial speech is not protected under the First Amendment
Contents |
Background[edit]
The case started when the respondent, F.J. Chrestensen violated a New York City municipal ordinance (§318 of the Sanitary Code) which prohibited distributing printed handbills in the streets bearing "commercial advertising matter." Chrestensen was using the handbills to promote his exhibit of a World War I submarine that was moored at a State pier in the East River and open for the public if they paid the stated admission fee.
Chrestensen was told by the Police Commissioner of New York City, Lewis J. Valentine, that he could not distribute the handbills bearing the commercial or business advertising matter. Valentine also advised Chrestensen that he could only distribute handbills solely devoted to "information, or a public protest."[1]
Chrestensen remade his handbill, by removing the admission fee on the front advertisement and on the reverse side placing a protest against the city's refusal.
Opinion of the Court[edit]
The court decided that "purely commercial advertising" is not protected under the first amendment. The court explained its decision as to why advertising did not afford the same protection as "political speech" under the first amendment because: a) advertising is not as important as political speech b) it is harder to chill advertising, which has a strong profit motive c) it's easier to verify ad claims than political claims, and therefore we have no need to tolerate false advertising.
Subsequent developments[edit]
This case was later overturned by Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council (1976).
References[edit]
- Justia's US Supreme Court Center [2]
External links[edit]
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Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
- The handbill leading to the litigation, http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1158&context=historical
- Transcript of record, http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=historical
