War & [Emotional] Peace: Death in Iraq and the Need to Constitutionalize Speech-Based lIED Claims Beyond Hustler Magazine v. Falwell

The protracted and ongoing war in Iraq has spawned several lawsuits in the United States based upon the tort theory of intentional infliction of emotional distress. This article focuses in depth on one of those recent cases, Read v. Lifeweaver, L.L.C., filed in federal court in Tennessee in April 2008. Using Read to illustrate its points, the article argues that the same constitutional safeguards extended by the United States Supreme Court in 1988 in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell against IIED claims filed by public figures should apply in cases like Read where the plaintiffs are private individuals outraged by a political message with which they strenuously disagree. Applying those safeguards to the facts in Read would, the article asserts, protect the antiwar speech at issue in that case.