Case Title: First Independent Baptist Church of Arab v. Southerland

Citation: 373 So. 2d 647

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1979-07-27T00:00:00Z

Document:
373 So. 2d 647 (1979)
FIRST INDEPENDENT BAPTIST CHURCH OF ARAB et al.
v.
Fred SOUTHERLAND.
78-475.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
July 27, 1979.
William D. Jetton of Jetton & Ogden, Guntersville, for appellants.
Clyde D. Baker, Guntersville, for appellee.
BEATTY, Justice.
This is an appeal under Rule 5, ARAP, from an interlocutory order of the Circuit Court of Marshall County declaring that certain radio broadcasts, if defamatory, would constitute libel rather than slander. We affirm.
For the purposes of this opinion it is necessary to recite only the facts essential to our decision. These are that the defendant Bailey, as pastor of the defendant church, taped a series of sermons at an Arab radio station, and each of these tapes was later broadcast over the airwaves by the station.
This is a case of first impression in our jurisdiction. A similar case has been decided but this precise issue was not before the Court because the parties themselves considered the case as one involving slander, *648 and so the case was reviewed from that premise. Brown v. W. R. M. A. Broadcasting Company, 286 Ala. 186, 238 So. 2d 540 (1970).
Libel is commonly perceived as a defamation which springs from the publication of written or printed material. Cf. Marion v. Davis, 217 Ala. 16, 114 So. 357 (1927) with White v. Birmingham Post Co., 233 Ala. 547, 172 So. 649 (1937). "Generally," it was stated in Bowling v. Pow, 293 Ala. 178, 301 So. 2d 55 (1974), "any false and malicious publication, when expressed in printing or writing, or by signs or pictures, is a libel, which ... tends to bring an individual into public hatred, contempt, or ridicule ...."
The expansion of communication technology has also enlarged the opportunities for dissemination of defamatory material, bringing with them difficulties in applying the original conceptions to contemporary innovations. These difficulties have led to divergent views. In an early case on the question, Sorenson v. Wood, 123 Neb. 348, 243 N.W. 82 (1932), it was held that statements in a written political address read over the radio constituted libel, not slander. Likewise, when a news commentator read defamatory words from a written script, this was held to be libel. Hartmann v. Winchell, 296 N.Y. 296, 73 N.E.2d 30 (1947). Accord, Gibler v. Houston Post Co., Tex.Civ. App., 310 S.W.2d 377 (1958) (television broadcast); Christy v. Stauffer Pub., Inc., Tex., 437 S.W.2d 814 (1969) (television broadcast). Even when a prepared script has not been used but the defamatory material was included in a statement made during a radio dialogue, this has been held to be libel rather than slander. Shor v. Billingsley, 4 Misc.2d 857, 158 N.Y.S.2d 476; aff'd. 4 A.D.2d 1017, 169 N.Y.S.2d 416 (1956). And in at least one case the jury has been instructed that a broadcast containing defamatory material was libelous per se without any qualification. Wanamaker v. Lewis, D.C., 173 F. Supp. 126 (1956). Contra, Arno v. Stewart, 245 Cal. App. 2d 955, 54 Cal. Rptr. 392 (1966).
Dean Prosser has commented upon these developments in his treatise, Prosser, The Law of Torts, § 112, p. 752 (4th ed. 1971):
*649 The concurring opinion of Fuld, J., in Winchell, supra, 296 N.Y.  at 300-304, 73 N.E.2d  at 33 articulates the policy issues inherent in reaching a decision on the classification:
Judge Fuld discussed the early law of slander, and the later development of libel law which made the writing itself "presumptive proof of damage." Emphasis on the form of publication, he wrote, "was apparently designed to cope with the new conditions created by the development of the printing press." He continued:
In its Restatement of The Law of Torts, Second, the American Law Institute has adopted the preceding rationale. In § 568 libel is defined as follows:
Broadcasting is specially treated in § 568A:
*650 Comment:
We are persuaded by the reasoning of the decisions cited and the American Law Institute that the rule within our jurisdiction should accord with § 568A of the Restatement as it applies to radio broadcasts. Accordingly, if the statements which were broadcast were defamatory they would constitute libel. It follows that the order of the trial court must be, and is, affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
TORBERT, C. J., and MADDOX, JONES and SHORES, JJ., concur.