Hannegan v. Esquire, Inc.

1946-02-04

Headline: Court limits postal power, blocks Postmaster General from revoking a magazine’s low mailing rate for being in poor taste, protecting magazines from administrative censorship and preserving broad second-class mail subsidy.

Holding: The Court held the Postmaster General cannot revoke a magazine’s second-class mailing privilege based on judgments about taste or quality, because that would permit administrative censorship and exceed the postal laws’ objective standards.

Real World Impact:

Prevents denial of low postal rates based on taste or perceived lack of value.
Protects magazines from administrative censorship through mailing-rate decisions.
Preserves broad access to subsidized second-class mailing for periodicals.

Topics: mailing rates, freedom of the press, magazines and mail, obscenity rules

Summary

Background

The dispute involved the publisher of a monthly men’s magazine that had held a favorable second-class mailing permit since 1933. In 1943 the Postmaster General’s office sought to revoke that permit, not because the issues were declared obscene, but because an official concluded portions were indecent or not a contribution to the public good. A hearing board recommended keeping the permit; the Postmaster General revoked it; the publisher sued. A trial court denied relief, the court of appeals reversed, and the Supreme Court took the case because of its importance for postal administration.

Reasoning

The central question was whether the Postmaster General may deny the subsidized second-class mailing rate based on judgments about a periodical’s taste, quality, or contribution to the public good. The Court reviewed the postal statutes and history and concluded Congress intended the second-class test to be objective and broad in scope. Denying the rate for mere lack of perceived value would let postal officials act as censors. The Court held the Postmaster General may check format and whether a periodical is of a public character or nonmailable (for example, obscene material), but he may not withhold the second-class privilege by deciding the contents fail some official standard of worth.

Real world impact

The ruling protects magazines and similar periodicals from being stripped of low postal rates because an official dislikes their tone or taste. It preserves a broad postal subsidy for many publications while leaving criminal nonmailable categories, like obscene matter, to separate statutory controls.

Dissents or concurrances

A concurring opinion stressed narrow application: it agreed the Postmaster General exceeded his powers and emphasized that “literature” for this subsidy must be read broadly, not as a taste-based limit.