Jerry Falwell vs. Hustler Magazine The respondent, Jerry Falwell, a nationally known minister and commentator of politics, filed a diversity action in Federal District Court against the petitioners, Hustler Magazine, Inc., a nationally circulated magazine and its publisher, to recover damages for, inter alia, libel and in intentional infliction of emotional distress arising from the publication of a parody that portrayed Falwell as having had a drunken incestuous rendezvous with his mother in an outhouse. The jury found against Falwell on the libel claim specifically because the parody couldn't “reas