03/02/2020 Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 US 514 - Supreme Court 2001 - Google Scholar In the early fall of 1993, the parties accepted a nonbinding arbitration proposal that was generally favorable to the teachers. In connection with news reports about the settlement, respondent Vopper, a radio commentator who had been critical of the union in the past, played a tape of the intercepted conversation on his public affairs talk show. Another station also broadcast the tape, and local newspapers published its contents. After filing suit against Vopper and other representatives of the media, Bartnicki and Kane (hereinafter petitioners) learned through discovery that Vopper had obtained the tape from respondent Jack Yocum, the head of a local taxpayers' organization that had opposed the union's demands throughout the negotiations. Yocum, who was added as a defendant, testified that he had found the tape in his mailbox shortly after the interception and recognized the voices of Bartnicki and Kane. Yocum played the tape for some members of the school board, and later delivered the tape itself to Vopper. II In their amended complaint, petitioners alleged that their telephone conversation had been surreptitiously intercepted by an unknown person using an electronic device, that Yocum had obtained a tape of that conversation, and that he intentionally disclosed it to Vopper, as well as other individuals and media representatives. Thereafter, Vopper and other members of the media repeatedly published the contents of that conversation. The amended complaint alleged that 520 each of the defendants "knew or had reason to know" that the recording of the private telephone conversation had been obtained by means of an illegal interception. Id., *520 at 27. Relying on both federal and Pennsylvania statutory provisions, petitioners sought actual damages, statutory damages, punitive damages, and attorney's fees and costs.[2] After the parties completed their discovery, they filed cross-motions for summary judgment. Respondents contended that they had not violated the statute because (a) they had nothing to do with the interception, and (b) in any event, their actions were not unlawful since the conversation might have been intercepted inadvertently. Moreover, even if they had violated the statute by disclosing the intercepted conversation, respondents argued, those disclosures were protected by the First Amendment. The District Court rejected the first statutory argument because, under the plain statutory language, an individual violates the federal Act by intentionally disclosing the contents of an electronic communication when he or she "know[s] or ha[s] reason to know that the information was obtained" through an illegal interception.[3] App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 99— 1687, pp. 53a—54a (emphasis deleted). Accordingly, actual involvement in the illegal interception is not necessary in order to establish a violation of that statute. With respect to the second statutory 521 argument, the District Court agreed that petitioners had to prove that the interception in question *521 was intentional,[4] but concluded that the text of the interception raised a genuine issue of material fact with respect to intent. That issue of fact was also the basis for the District Court's denial of petitioners' motion. Finally, the District Court rejected respondents' First Amendment defense because the statutes were content-neutral laws of general applicability that contained "no indicia of prior restraint or the chilling of free speech." Id., at 55a—56a. Thereafter, the District Court granted a motion for an interlocutory appeal, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b). It certified as controlling questions of law: "(1) whether the imposition of liability on the media Defendants under the [wiretapping statutes] solely for broadcasting the newsworthy tape on the Defendant [Vopper's] radio news/public affairs program, when the tape was illegally intercepted and recorded by unknown persons who were not agents of [the] Defendants, violates the First Amendment; and (2) whether imposition of liability under the aforesaid [wiretapping] statutes on Defendant Jack Yocum solely for providing the anonymously intercepted and recorded tape to the media Defendants violates the First Amendment." App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 99-1728, p. 76a. The Court of Appeals accepted the appeal, and the United States, also a petitioner, intervened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2403 in order to defend the constitutionality of the federal statute. 522 All three members of the panel agreed with petitioners and the Government that the federal and Pennsylvania wiretapping statutes are "content-neutral" and therefore subject to "intermediate scrutiny." 200 F. 3d 109, 121 (CA3 1999). Applying that standard, the majority concluded that the *522 statutes were invalid because they deterred significantly more speech than necessary to protect the privacy interests at stake. The court remanded the case with instructions to enter summary judgment for respondents. In dissent, Senior Judge Pollak expressed the view that the prohibition against disclosures was necessary in order to remove the incentive for illegal interceptions and to preclude compounding the harm caused by such interceptions through wider dissemination. In so doing, he agreed with the majority opinion in a similar case decided by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Boehner v. McDermott, 191 F. 3d 463 (1999). See also Peavy v. WFAA—TV, Inc., 221 F. 3d 158 (CA5 2000).[5] We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 530 U. S. 1260 (2000). III https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?q=bartnicki&hl=en&as_sdt=2006&case=2171346211086974391&scilh=0 2/15