Goldwater v. Ginzburg

History

Fact magazine was edited by Ralph Ginzburg and Warren Boroson. The magazine was sued by Barry Goldwater over a 1964 article entitled "The Unconscious of a Conservative: A special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater." The magazine polled psychiatrists and asked if Goldwater was psychologically fit to serve as president. A federal jury awarded Goldwater $1 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in punitive damages, to punish Ginzburg and the magazine for being reckless. The American Psychiatric Association then issued the Goldwater rule reaffirming medical privacy and forbidding commenting on a patient that any individual psychiatrist has not personally examined.