Case Citator › Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Questioned by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
315 U.S. 568
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
41 of 41
Citing cases (total)
41
Treatment dates
2016
Questioned by some courts
At least one reviewed court has questioned this case’s reasoning or continued validity. No reviewed court has overruled it. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire remains authority for the fighting words exception, but a Colorado court questioned whether its separate “inflict injury” language survives later Supreme Court decisions. All 41 flagged citations have been read.
More on how this was screened

The confirmed question is listed below.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

41 later cases cite Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire; 41 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Questioned

  • The court questioned whether Chaplinsky's “inflict injury” category of fighting words survived later Supreme Court decisions; it resolved the case under a Colorado statute requiring a tendency to provoke an immediate breach of the peace.

    People ex rel. R.C. · Colorado Court of Appeals · filed

    But soon after Chaplinsky , the Supreme Court either dropped the "inflict injury" category of fighting words altogether or recited the full definition of fighting words without further reference to any distinction between merely hurtful speech and speech that tends to provoke an immediate breach of the peace.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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