Superior Films, Inc. v. Department of Education

159 Ohio St. (N.S.) 315
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedApril 29, 1953
DocketNos. 33265, 33282, and 33283
StatusPublished

This text of 159 Ohio St. (N.S.) 315 (Superior Films, Inc. v. Department of Education) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Superior Films, Inc. v. Department of Education, 159 Ohio St. (N.S.) 315 (Ohio 1953).

Opinions

Hast, J.

The plaintiff in case No. 33265 submits that the question presented is whether “motion pictures, as distinguished from other media of human expression, may be subjected to censorship in advance of publication; or, whether motion pictures, along with such other media, are entitled to protection from all restraint except such as is incident to responsibility for abuse.”

On the other hand, the defendant states his basic position as follows:

“The impact of the motion picture, the unrestricted audience, and the subject matter of those films which experience shows have been rejected, taken together present an area of proper interest for Ohio and an area which can be constitutionally regulated. The standards of regulation under this statute have acquired in this court and through administrative experience a definiteness which complies with procedural due process of law. The Division of Film Censorship acted reasonably and within the proper bounds of its discretion in rejecting the motion picture 'M.’ The question of the tax or license characteristics of the fee provided is regarded as a separate and collateral question. It is plainly a license fee though some surplus revenue has been produced. Irrespective of that, however, plaintiff voluntarily paid the fee and by all ordinary principles of law should be estopped from making his voluntary act the basis for a constitutional challenge. ’ ’

In 1913, the Ohio General Assembly adoted a motion picture censorship act providing for a Board of [320]*320Censors to operate under the authority and supervision of the Industrial Commission. Section 871-48, General Code, a part of the act, provided that “it shall be the duty of the Board of Censors to examine and censor as herein provided, of motion picture films to be publicly exhibited and displayed in the state of Ohio.”

Section 871-49 provided that “only such films as are in the judgment and discretion of the Board of Censors of a moral, educational or amusing and harmless character shall be passed and approved by such board.”

In 1935, the censorship body was designated as the “Division of Film Censorship of the Department of Education” (116 Ohio Laws, 100). In 1943, Section 871-48, General Code, became present Section 154-47, General Code, and Section 871-49, General Code, became present Section 154-47&, General Code (120 Ohio Laws, 481), but the language of the statutes as above quoted has remained practically the same.

In 1914, the constitutionality of the Ohio censorship act, as above noted, was under consideration by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, 236 U. S., 230, 59 L. Ed., 552, 35 S. Ct., 387, Ann. Cas. 1916C, 296.

In that case the act was attacked from three standpoints as follows: (1) That the act was in violation of Sections 5,16 and 19 of Article I of the Constitution of Ohio in that it deprived an applicant of due process of law by placing in the board of censors the power to determine from standards fixed by itself what films conformed to the statute; (2) that the act was in violation of Articles I and XIV of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and of Section 11 of Article I of the Constitution of Ohio, in that it restrained applicant and other persons from freely [321]*321writing and publishing their sentiments; and (3) that the act attempted to give the board of censors legislative power, which is vested only in the General Assembly, in that it gave to the board the power to apply the act without fixing any standard by which the board should be guided in its determination.

The court there held legislative power is not delegated and the freedom of speech and publication guaranteed by Section 11, Article I of the Ohio Constitution, is not violated by the provisions of Sections 154-47 to 154-47Í, inclusive, General Code, creating a board of censors which is required to examine and censor prior to exhibition motion picture films intended to be publicly exhibited and displayed in the state, and to pass and approve only such films as are, in its judgment, of a moral, educational, or amusing and harmless character.

In that case Justice McKenna said:

“* * * Films of a ‘moral, educational or amusing and harmless character shall be passed and approved’ are the words of the statute. No exhibition, therefore, or ‘campaign’ of complainant will be prevented if its pictures have those qualities. Therefore, however missionary of opinion films are or may become, however educational or entertaining, there is no impediment to their value or effect in the Ohio statute. But they may be used for evil, and against that possibility the statute was enacted. Their power of amusement and, it may be, education, the audiences they assemble, not of women alone nor of men alone, but together, not of adults only, but of children, make them the more insidious in corruption by a pretense of worthy purpose or if they should degenerate from worthy purpose. Indeed, we may go beyond that possibility. They take their attraction from the general interest, eager and wholesome it may be, in their subjects, but a [322]*322prurient interest may be excited and appealed to. Besides, there are some things which should not have pictorial representation in public places and to all audiences. And not only the state of Ohio but other states have considered it to be in the interest of the public morals and welfare to supervise moving picture exhibitions. We would have to shut our eyes to the facts of the world to regard the precaution unreasonable or the legislation to effect it a mere wanton interference with personal liberty.

6 i # # #

“* * * It cannot be put out of view that the exhibition of moving pictures is a business pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit, like other spectacles, not to be regarded, nor intended to be regarded by the Ohio Constitution, we think, as part of the press of the country or as organs of public opinion. They are mere representations of events, of ideas and sentiments published and known, vivid, useful and entertaining no doubt, but, as we have said, capable of evil, having power for it, the greater because of their attractiveness and manner of exhibition. It was this capability and power, and it may be in experience of them, that induced the state of Ohio, in addition to prescribing penalties for immoral exhibitions, as it does in its Criminal Code, to require censorship before exhibition, as it does by the act under review. We cannot regard this as beyond the power of government.”

The plaintiff asserts that the free speech and press guaranty of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is secured from infringement by the state by the Fourteenth Amendment to that Constitution, and that the guaranties of Sections 2 and 11, Article I of the Constitution of Ohio, are coextensive therewith (Joseph Burstyn, Inc., v. Wilson, Commr., 343 U. S., 495, 500, 96 L. Ed., 1098, 72 S. Ct., 777; [323]*323Direct Plumbing Supply Co. v. City of Dayton, 138 Ohio St., 540, 38 N. E. [2d], 70, 137 A. L. R., 1058); and that motion pictures are a mode of expression entitled to the same protection as “speech” and “the press” (Burstyn, Inc., v. Wilson, Commr., supra; Gelling v. Texas, 343 U. S., 960, 96 L. Ed., 1359, 72 S. Ct., 1002; United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U. S., 131, 166, 92 L. Ed., 1260, 1297, 68 S.

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Bluebook (online)
159 Ohio St. (N.S.) 315, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/superior-films-inc-v-department-of-education-ohio-1953.