McDonald v. Smith
E176640
McDonald v. Smith is a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court case that held the First Amendment’s Petition Clause does not grant absolute immunity from libel suits for statements made in petitions to government officials.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| McDonald v. Smith canonical | 2 |
| McDonald v. Smith, 472 U.S. 479 (1985) | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1538894 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: McDonald v. Smith Context triple: [Petition Clause, citedInCase, McDonald v. Smith]
-
A.
Briggs v. Elliott
Briggs v. Elliott was a landmark federal court case from South Carolina challenging racial segregation in public schools, and it became one of the key cases consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education.
-
B.
Milliken v. Bradley
Milliken v. Bradley is a landmark 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited the scope of school desegregation remedies by ruling that courts could not impose cross-district busing plans absent proof of interdistrict segregation.
-
C.
Lau v. Nichols
Lau v. Nichols is a landmark 1974 U.S. Supreme Court case that held public schools must take affirmative steps to help non-English-speaking students overcome language barriers to ensure equal educational opportunity under federal civil rights law.
-
D.
Sherbert v. Verner
Sherbert v. Verner is a landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case that strengthened protections for religious liberty by requiring strict scrutiny of government actions that substantially burden individuals’ religious practices.
-
E.
Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio
Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio is a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case that narrowed the standards for proving employment discrimination under Title VII, prompting Congress to later revise those standards in the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: McDonald v. Smith Target entity description: McDonald v. Smith is a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court case that held the First Amendment’s Petition Clause does not grant absolute immunity from libel suits for statements made in petitions to government officials.
-
A.
Briggs v. Elliott
Briggs v. Elliott was a landmark federal court case from South Carolina challenging racial segregation in public schools, and it became one of the key cases consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education.
-
B.
Milliken v. Bradley
Milliken v. Bradley is a landmark 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited the scope of school desegregation remedies by ruling that courts could not impose cross-district busing plans absent proof of interdistrict segregation.
-
C.
Lau v. Nichols
Lau v. Nichols is a landmark 1974 U.S. Supreme Court case that held public schools must take affirmative steps to help non-English-speaking students overcome language barriers to ensure equal educational opportunity under federal civil rights law.
-
D.
Sherbert v. Verner
Sherbert v. Verner is a landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case that strengthened protections for religious liberty by requiring strict scrutiny of government actions that substantially burden individuals’ religious practices.
-
E.
Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio
Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio is a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case that narrowed the standards for proving employment discrimination under Title VII, prompting Congress to later revise those standards in the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (37)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
First Amendment case
ⓘ
United States Supreme Court case ⓘ |
| citation | 472 U.S. 479 ⓘ |
| concurrenceBy |
Lewis F. Powell Jr.
ⓘ
Sandra Day O'Connor ⓘ
linked to:
Sandra Day O’Connor
William J. Brennan Jr. ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvisionInterpreted |
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
ⓘ
Petition Clause of the First Amendment ⓘ
linked to:
Petition Clause
|
| country |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1985-06-19 ⓘ |
| docketNumber | 84-328 ⓘ |
| holding |
petitions to the government are subject to the same standards of liability as other First Amendment expressions
ⓘ
the Petition Clause of the First Amendment does not provide absolute immunity from libel suits for statements made in petitions to government officials ⓘ
linked to:
Petition Clause
|
| jurisdiction |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| legalIssue |
scope of First Amendment Petition Clause
ⓘ
whether Petition Clause provides absolute immunity from libel suits ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy | Warren E. Burger ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionJoinedBy |
Byron R. White
ⓘ
Harry A. Blackmun ⓘ Lewis F. Powell Jr. ⓘ Sandra Day O'Connor ⓘ
linked to:
Sandra Day O’Connor
Thurgood Marshall ⓘ William H. Rehnquist ⓘ William J. Brennan Jr. ⓘ |
| oralArgumentDate | 1985-03-18 ⓘ |
| pageInUnitedStatesReports | 479 ⓘ |
| petitioner | David H. McDonald ⓘ |
| reargumentDate | 1985-04-22 ⓘ |
| relatedAreaOfLaw |
constitutional law
ⓘ
defamation law ⓘ freedom of speech ⓘ |
| respondent | William C. Smith NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| result | judgment of the Court of Appeals was affirmed in part and reversed in part ⓘ |
| shortDescription | U.S. Supreme Court case holding that the First Amendment Petition Clause does not confer absolute immunity from libel liability for statements in petitions to government officials ⓘ |
| volumeOfUnitedStatesReports | 472 ⓘ |
| yearDecided | 1985 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: McDonald v. Smith Description of subject: McDonald v. Smith is a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court case that held the First Amendment’s Petition Clause does not grant absolute immunity from libel suits for statements made in petitions to government officials.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: McDonald v. Smith