482 Pa. 377, 393 A.2d 1155 (Pa. 1978)
Willing v. Mazzocone is a leading Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision at the intersection of tort law (defamation), equitable remedies, and the First Amendment.
May a court of equity enjoin a private individual from picketing and distributing handbills that allegedly defame named attorneys, or is such an order an impermissible prior restraint where damages at law provide the appropriate remedy?
Equity will not enjoin defamation. Prior restraints on speech are presumptively unconstitutional under the First Amendment, even when the targeted speech is alleged to be defamatory; the appropriate remedy for defamation is a post-publication damages action, not a pre-publication or ongoing injunction, absent extraordinary circumstances not present in cases of ordinary reputational harm.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the injunction. An order restraining Mazzocone from picketing and distributing handbills was an impermissible prior restraint and contrary to the principle that equity does not enjoin libel; the attorneys' remedy lies in an action for damages.
Willing v. Mazzocone is a cornerstone Pennsylvania authority for the proposition that courts do not enjoin libel and that content-based, preemptive speech restrictions are almost always impermissible. It is frequently cited by state and federal courts (including the Third Circuit) as articulating the state-law bar on equitable relief for defamation and as consonant with federal prior restraint doctrine. For students, the case teaches how constitutional free speech principles shape private-law remedies and why reputational harm, however serious, typically must be addressed through damages rather than censorship via injunction.