Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.

The Court, apparently moved by concerns for intellectual tidiness, mistakenly decides that the “clear and convincing evidence” standard governing finders of fact in libel cases must be applied by trial courts in deciding a motion for summary judgment in such a case. The Court refers to this as a “substantive standard,” but I think is is actually a procedural *269requirement engrafted onto Rule 56, contrary to our statement in Calder v. Jones, 465 U. S. 783 (1984), that

“[w]e have already declined in other contexts to grant special procedural protections to defendants in libel and defamation…