New York Times v Sullivan rested on an unchallenged contested empirical claim

Evidence

This empirical conclusion may well be true, but it is not at all clear how the Supreme Court knew that it was true. Some might think the proposition self-evident, but once we realize that uninhibited, robust, and wide-open press criticism of public officials exists in countries with far more restrictive defamation doctrines (Australia, for example) than exist in the United States, it becomes less clear that the factual proposition that provided the linchpin for the Court’s conclusion was as selfevident as the Supreme Court thought it was. — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 392

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does empirical scholarship since 1964 confirm or refute the chilling-effect premise of Sullivan? Would make a good follow-up investigation.
• XREF: connects to: Factual propositions cannot be sustained merely by citing negative evidence — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 902

Broader Connections

• Factual propositions cannot be sustained merely by citing negative evidence #expands (0.45) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 902