Valentine v. Chrestensen
316 U.S. 52 (1942)
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Rule of Law:
While states cannot unduly burden the dissemination of information and opinion in public thoroughfares, the Constitution does not restrain government from regulating purely commercial advertising, and one cannot gain First Amendment protection for commercial speech by appending a non-commercial message to it for the purpose of evading a valid ordinance.
Facts:
- F. J. Chrestensen, the respondent, owned a former U.S. Navy submarine which he exhibited for profit in New York City.
- Chrestensen prepared a handbill advertising the submarine and soliciting visitors for a stated admission fee.
- Police Commissioner Valentine, the petitioner, informed Chrestensen that distributing this handbill would violate § 318 of the Sanitary Code, which bans the distribution of commercial advertising in the streets.
- The police advised Chrestensen that he was free to distribute handbills devoted solely to 'information or a public protest.'
- Chrestensen then created a double-sided handbill: one side contained the commercial advertisement (with the admission fee removed), and the other side contained a protest against the City Dock Department for refusing him wharfage facilities.
- The Police Department advised Chrestensen that distribution of this double-faced bill was also prohibited.
- Despite the warning, Chrestensen began distributing the double-sided handbill and was restrained by the police.
Procedural Posture:
- Chrestensen sued Police Commissioner Valentine in the U.S. District Court, seeking to enjoin the enforcement of the ordinance.
- The District Court granted a preliminary injunction and later, after a trial on stipulated facts, a permanent injunction in favor of Chrestensen.
- Valentine, the petitioner, appealed the permanent injunction to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
- A divided Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's decision, siding with Chrestensen, the appellee.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Issue:
Does a municipal ordinance that forbids the distribution of commercial and business advertising matter in the streets violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments' guarantees of freedom of speech and press when applied to a handbill containing both commercial advertising on one side and a non-commercial protest on the other?
Opinions:
Majority - Mr. Justice Roberts
No, the municipal ordinance does not violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments. While streets are proper places for exercising freedom of communication, the Constitution imposes no such restraint on government as respects purely commercial advertising. The Court found that Chrestensen's affixing of the protest to his commercial circular was done with the clear intent to evade the prohibition of the ordinance. To permit such an evasion would allow any merchant to immunize their commercial leaflets from regulation simply by appending a civic appeal or moral platitude. The legislative body has the authority to determine whether a gainful occupation pursued in the streets constitutes an undesirable interference with the public's right of user.
Analysis:
This case established the 'commercial speech doctrine,' which for decades held that purely commercial advertising received no First Amendment protection. This created a bright-line rule distinguishing commercial speech from political or public-interest speech, granting state and local governments broad power to regulate advertising without constitutional scrutiny. Although the Supreme Court later abandoned this categorical exclusion in cases like Virginia Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, this decision was the foundational precedent that for many years placed commercial speech entirely outside the ambit of the First Amendment.
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