Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Department
Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Department is a significant Supreme Court case that addressed the balance between free speech and individual privacy rights in the context of unsolicited mailings. At the heart of the case was Section 4009 of the 1967 U.S. Postal Revenue and Federal Salary Act, which allows individuals to request the cessation of unsolicited advertisements they find objectionable, particularly those deemed "erotically arousing or sexually provocative." The owner of a mail-order company challenged this law, arguing that it infringed upon his First and Fifth Amendment rights, claiming it was vague and ambiguous.
The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Warren Burger, upheld the law, emphasizing that an individual's right to control the mail they receive takes precedence over a mailer's right to communicate. The Court determined that the procedures outlined in the law for individuals to opt-out of unwanted mail were adequate and did not violate due process. The ruling highlighted the importance of personal autonomy in deciding what communications are welcome, thus affirming the rights of individuals to protect themselves from unsolicited material in their mailboxes. Overall, Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Department underscores the legal recognition of privacy rights in the realm of unsolicited communications.
Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Department
Court: U.S. Supreme Court
Date: May 4, 1970
Significance: In a case originating in a mail-order company’s complaint that its constitutional right to free speech was violated by a federal postal law empowering people to stop unsolicited mailings, the Supreme Court issued a ruling favoring protection of individual rights to privacy over free speech
Section 4009 of the 1967 U.S. Postal Revenue and Federal Salary Act, Title III, empowers individuals to order companies engaged in mass mailings to stop sending them unsolicited advertisements for material that they regard as “erotically arousing or sexually provocative.” The law also permits individuals to order their names deleted from all mailing lists in the mail-order companies’ possession. Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Department originated in a case brought by the owner of a mail-order company who claimed that the 1967 law violated his First and Fifth Amendment rights of free speech and due process. He also asserted that the law’s section 4009 was“unconstitutionally vague, without standards, and ambiguous.”
In deciding Rowan, the Court examined the subsections of section 4009 that outline the procedures for ordering the cessation of mailings to individual households. One subsection states that mailers can be ordered by private individuals “to refrain from further mailings . . . to designated addressees.” Another subsection assigns the postmaster general the duty of issuing requested cessation orders to specified mailers. A third subsection requires mailers to remove the names of complainants from their mailing lists and prohibits the sale, transfer, or exchange of lists bearing their names. Upon determination of a violation, the postmaster general can ask the attorney general to issue a compliance order against the mailer.
The Court decision affirmed the right of private individuals to direct the cessation of mailings and the deletion of their names from mailing lists used in the distribution of unsolicited advertisements. Explaining the Court’s opinion, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote: “Weighing the highly important right to communicate . . . against the very basic right to be free of sights, sounds, and tangible matter we do not want, it seems to us that a mailer’s right to communicate must stop at the mailbox of an unreceptive addressee.” Burger added that “a mailer’s right to communicate is circumscribed only by an affirmative act of the addressee.” In sum, the Court ruled that a mailer’s right to communicate is not significantly infringed upon when balanced by a recipient’s right to be free from unwanted communications.
The Court also held that the appellant’s due process was not violated, and that section 4009 of the law was not unconstitutionally vague. Burger noted that “the only administrative action not preceded by a full hearing is the initial issuance of the prohibitory order. Since the sender risks no immediate sanction by failing to comply with that order . . . it cannot be said that this aspect of the procedure denies due process.” Furthermore, Burger reasoned that because “appellants know precisely what they must do on receipt of a prohibitory order,” the appellant’s vagueness argument was ruled invalid.