## Facts

- In December 2014, Kathrine Mae McKee publicly accused entertainer William H. Cosby, Jr. of forcibly raping her about 40 years earlier.
- McKee disclosed her accusation to a reporter, and it became part of the public controversy surrounding sexual-assault allegations against Cosby.
- McKee alleged that Cosby’s attorney responded on Cosby’s behalf by writing a letter that portrayed McKee as unreliable and that the letter was leaked and republished widely, including online and by news outlets.
- McKee sued Cosby in federal court (diversity jurisdiction), asserting a state-law defamation claim and alleging that the letter distorted her background to harm her reputation and to embarrass and intimidate her.
- The district court dismissed the complaint, reasoning that McKee was a limited-purpose public figure for the controversy and therefore had to plead and ultimately prove “actual malice” under *New York Times Co. v. Sullivan*.
- The First Circuit affirmed, concluding that by providing her allegations to the press, McKee had thrust herself to the forefront of the public controversy over sexual-assault allegations involving Cosby.
- McKee petitioned for certiorari, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the limited-purpose public figure determination and the resulting requirement to show actual malice.

## Issues

1. Whether McKee, by publicly disclosing her accusation to the press, became a limited-purpose public figure for the public controversy involving sexual-assault allegations against Cosby.
2. Whether, if she was a limited-purpose public figure, the First Amendment required her to show “actual malice” (knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for truth) to recover for defamation.
3. Whether the Court should reconsider *New York Times Co. v. Sullivan* and later decisions that impose the actual-malice requirement in public-figure defamation cases (as raised in Justice Thomas’s separate opinion).

## Decision

- The Supreme Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari. *McKee v. Cosby*, 139 S. Ct. 675 (2019) (Mem).
- Because certiorari was denied, the Court issued no merits ruling on McKee’s public-figure status or on the constitutional defamation standards applied below; the First Circuit’s judgment remained in place.
- Justice Thomas filed an opinion concurring in the denial of certiorari.
- Justice Thomas agreed that the petition presented a fact-bound dispute about McKee’s classification as a limited-purpose public figure and that it was not a suitable vehicle for review.
- Justice Thomas wrote separately to argue that, in an appropriate future case, the Court should reconsider *Sullivan* and its extensions, which he described as policy-driven decisions framed as constitutional law rather than rules grounded in the original meaning of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

## Legal Principles

- A denial of certiorari is not a decision on the merits and does not approve or disapprove the lower court’s reasoning; it simply leaves the lower court’s judgment in place.
- Under the limited-purpose public figure doctrine, a person may be treated as a public figure for a specific public controversy when she voluntarily injects herself into that controversy or otherwise assumes a role of special prominence in it.
- In public-figure (and limited-purpose public figure) defamation cases, *Sullivan* and later cases require the plaintiff to prove “actual malice”: that the challenged statement was made with knowledge of falsity or with reckless disregard as to truth or falsity.
- Justice Thomas’s concurrence argued that the actual-malice rule and related constitutional limits on state defamation law lack strong support in the text and original meaning of the First Amendment and the historical treatment of libel and slander at common law, and that the Court should reevaluate whether the Constitution truly requires that framework.
- Justice Thomas emphasized that, because this was a concurrence in a certiorari denial, it did not change existing doctrine and did not resolve whether McKee was correctly treated as a limited-purpose public figure.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court denied certiorari in McKee’s defamation suit against Cosby, leaving intact the First Circuit’s determination that McKee was a limited-purpose public figure who therefore had to satisfy the actual-malice standard; Justice Thomas concurred in the denial but wrote separately to argue that the Court should, in a proper case, reconsider *New York Times Co. v. Sullivan* and the constitutional basis for requiring actual malice in public-figure defamation actions.


McKee v. Cosby, 139 S. Ct. 675 (2019) (Thomas, J., concurring in denial of certiorari)