Case Title: David A. Kipper, M.D. v. NYP Holdings Co., Inc.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: new-york

Court: New York Appellate Court

Date: 2009-04-30T00:00:00Z

Document:
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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
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No. 54  
David A. Kipper, M.D., 
            Appellant, 
et al., 
            Plaintiff, 
        v. 
NYP Holdings Co., Inc., &c.,
            Respondent.
David Jaroslawicz, for appellant.
Slade R. Metcalf, for respondent.
CIPARICK, J.:
In this appeal, we must determine whether the summary
judgment record contains clear and convincing evidence that
defendant published a false and defamatory statement concerning
the revocation of plaintiff's medical license with "actual
malice," as defined in New York Times Co. v Sullivan (376 US 254
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No. 54
1  Because Supreme Court dismissed claims brought on behalf
of Dr. Kipper's professional corporation, all references to
"plaintiff" herein are to Kipper in his individual capacity.    
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[1964]).  Because it does not, we affirm the Appellate Division's
grant of summary judgment to defendant.  
I.
On December 7, 2003, page 24 of the New York Post's
Sunday edition carried a short, eight-paragraph, "rewrite" of a
98-paragraph article taken from the Los Angeles Times's wire
service.  The Times article, entitled "Harsh Reality of
'Osbournes' No Laughing Matter," described the rock-singer John
"Ozzy" Osbourne's allegations that his former physician,
plaintiff David A. Kipper, had overprescribed various medications
to him during the time that Osbourne starred in a television
reality series.1  In addition, the Times article accurately
stated that the California Medical Board had "moved to revoke"
plaintiff's license due to his alleged gross negligence in the
treatment of other patients.  But the Post article, which
appeared under the inaccurate headline "Ozzy's Rx doc's license
pulled," contained an error.  Despite clearly indicating that it
was based upon "Los Angeles Times reports," the sixth paragraph
of the Post rewrite incorrectly stated that "the state medical
board revoked Kipper's license."  
The circumstances surrounding the Post's erroneous
statement are not entirely clear.  The record reveals that,
sometime during the evening of December 6, a Post editor assigned
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No. 54
2  At his deposition, Gittens stated that the original draft
might have been "purged" from one of the Post's electronic file
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the task of rewriting the wire service story to a then-part-time
reporter, Lyle Hasani Gittens.  According to Gittens, the Post
re-write was slated to appear in the second edition of the paper,
the usual deadline for which was "around 8:00 to 9:00 o'clock." 
Gittens swore in an affidavit and testified at his deposition
that he did not recall writing and did not think he wrote that
plaintiff's license was revoked, a statement that defendant
concedes was both false and defamatory.  He speculated that the
error might have occurred during the editing process.
After Gittens prepared the re-write on a personal
computer, he transmitted it to an electronic "basket" where it
was reviewed by an editor.  Gittens was aware that editors
sometimes altered the text of articles and, as typical of such
editing, he cited stylistic changes to an article's lead, or
first, paragraph.  But he denied having any knowledge that Post
editors deliberately changed the facts of stories. 
The record sheds no light on the actual editing of
Gittens's rewrite.  The editor responsible for it, Todd Venezia
testified that he would "never deliberately" falsify information
pertaining to a doctor's licensure, but he could not offer any
specific details pertaining to his review of the December 7 re-
write.  Moreover, the record does not contain the original draft
that Gittens submitted to Venezia.2  
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No. 54
directories.
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An affidavit submitted by the Post's Metropolitan
Editor, Jesse Angelo, does, however, set forth the path that a
rewrite generally travels after editorial review.  At that point,
it is sent to the copy desk for additional checking of grammar,
punctuation and accuracy as well as any reduction in text
necessary to fit the paper's layout requirements.  The copy desk
is also responsible for preparing headlines before the article is
processed by the production department for page-setting and
transmission to the printer.  How these steps were accomplished
prior to publication of the "Ozzy" rewrite is not revealed by the
record.
Apparently, the sole source material for Gittens's
rewrite was the Los Angeles Times wire service story.  Gittens
testified that he "did not recall" making any independent effort
to verify the status of plaintiff's license prior to publication
of the Post article.  Additionally, Gittens remarked that Post
editors would "[n]ot necessarily" engage in additional fact-
checking after an article's submission unless "something very
conspicuous . . . leap[t] out at them."  Accepting the substance
of a wire service story was not unusual, according to Angelo.  He
averred that the Post occasionally reprints stories disseminated
on reputable wire services, such as that of the Los Angeles
Times, verbatim and that additional research regarding the
factual accuracy of such stories is not generally undertaken. 
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No. 54
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With respect to the Los Angeles Times wire service dispatch
relevant here, Angelo stated that "this is not the kind of story
that [the Post] would have expected a reporter to do additional
research [on]."  
Nonetheless, Angelo explained that a reporter
performing a rewrite may make "minor editorial changes,"
including "more interesting word selection," before publication
in the Post.  During his deposition, Gittens provided additional
details about the rewriting process, stating that it essentially
entailed shortening the length of a wire service dispatch and
changing its "lead" paragraph "to make it more Post-like," by
which he meant "less boring than the Los Angeles Times" or "[a]
better read."  The lead paragraph in the rewrite of which
plaintiff complains, however, correctly stated that plaintiff was
"under investigation for over-prescribing drugs."  
On January 30, 2004 -- nearly two months after it was
published -- counsel for plaintiff wrote to the Post asserting
that the December 7 re-write was false and defamatory and
"published with reckless disregard for the truth."  The letter
demanded a retraction within 14 days.  The Post complied,
publishing a "Correction," on page 26 of its February 9 edition,
which stated that the state medical board had "moved to revoke
[plaintiff's] license, although no action has as yet been taken." 
Plaintiff then commenced this libel suit on November 23, 2004,
almost a year after the Post rewrite was first published and more
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No. 54
3  The actual malice standard applies here because, as
Supreme Court held, plaintiff is "unquestionably a public figure"
due to the extensive media coverage of his detoxification
practice, his more than 100 television appearances as a medical
expert, and his roles as a doctor in several films (see James v
Gannett Co., 40 NY2d 415, 422 [1976]).    
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than nine months after publication of the requested retraction.  
Following discovery, defendant moved for summary
judgment.  As relevant here, Supreme Court denied the motion,
reasoning that defendant bore the burden of demonstrating that
its misstatement regarding the status of plaintiff's license was
not published with actual malice as defined by New York Times --
i.e., with knowledge of falsity or a reckless disregard for the
truth.3  A unanimous Appellate Division reversed, granting
defendant summary judgment and dismissing the complaint (see 47
AD3d 597, 598 [1st Dept 2008]).  We granted leave to appeal and
now affirm. 
II.
As set forth in New York Times Co. v Sullivan (376 US
254 [1964]) and its progeny, the U.S. Constitution's First
Amendment bars a public figure from recovering damages in a libel
action unless clear and convincing evidence proves that a false
and defamatory statement was published with "'actual malice' --
that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless
disregard of whether it was false or not" (id. at 279-280, 285-
286; Masson v New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 US 496, 511 [1991];
Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc. v Connaughton, 491 US 657, 666-
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No. 54
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667 [1989]; Bose Corp. v Consumers Union of U.S., Inc., 466 US
485, 511 [1984]).  The clear and convincing evidence standard is
applicable to a trial court's assessment of a libel defendant's
motion for summary judgment (see Anderson v Liberty Lobby, Inc.,
477 US 242, 252 [1986]; see also Freeman v Johnston, 84 NY2d 52,
57 [1994]).  In such a posture, the question is "whether the
evidence in the record could support a reasonable jury finding
either that the plaintiff has shown actual malice by clear and
convincing evidence or that the plaintiff has not" (Anderson, 477
US at 255-256).  
Thus, a libel defendant's burden in support of summary
judgment is not, as Supreme Court reasoned, to prove as a matter
of law that it did not publish with actual malice, but to point
to deficiencies in the record that will prevent plaintiff from
proving that fact by clear and convincing evidence (cf. Roche v
Hearst Corp., 53 NY2d 767, 769 [1981]; Millus v Newsday, Inc., 89
NY2d 840, 843 [1996]).  On appeal, our task is to undertake an
independent review to determine whether the record evidence is
capable of demonstrating actual malice with "convincing clarity"
(see Freeman, 84 NY2d at 56-57).  We turn then to plaintiff's
argument that the record contains evidence sufficient for a
reasonable jury to find that the Post published the erroneous
statements regarding his license with reckless disregard for the
truth.  
Although incapable of "one infallible definition . . .
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No. 54
4  The sort of actual malice required under New York Times
"should not be confused with the concept of malice as an evil
intent or a motive arising from spite or ill will" (see Masson,
501 US at 510-511).  While such motivations are not irrelevant to
the actual malice inquiry (see 2 Smolla and Nimmer On Freedom of
Speech § 23:3, 23-17 [2008] [hereinafter Smolla & Nimmer]), there
is no evidence in this record that defendant was motivated by an
intent to injure plaintiff.  
5  The dissent does not quarrel with this point (see
dissenting opn, at 5).  Nor could it (see 2 Smolla & Nimmer at  
§ 23:3, 23-15 [noting that the U.S. Supreme Court has "repeatedly
emphasized the subjective nature of the actual malice
standard"]).  Recognizing the rule that the actual malice inquiry
necessarily entails consideration of a defendant's subjective
mental state, does not, however, inevitably place the outcome of
a libel case within a defendant's "unilateral control" (see
dissenting opn, at 5 [internal quotation omitted]).  That result
would only obtain if a libel defendant's mere assertion of good
faith publication, despite clear and convincing circumstantial
evidence of actual malice, would suffice to permit summary
judgment.  As the dissent correctly points out, this Court has
never sanctioned such a rigid rule (see Prozeralik v Capital
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. reckless conduct is not measured by whether a reasonably
prudent [person] would have published, or would have investigated
before publishing" (see St. Amant v Thompson, 390 US 727, 730-731
[1968]).  Instead, to cross the constitutional threshold of
actual malice, there must be "clear and convincing evidence that
the author in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of
his publication or acted with a high degree of awareness of . . .
probable falsity" (see Masson, 501 US at 510 [internal citations
and quotations omitted]).4  The inquiry is thus a subjective one,
focusing upon the state of mind of the publisher of the allegedly
libelous statements at the time of publication (see Bose Corp.,
466 US at 511 n 30; Harte-Hanks, 491 US at 689).5  This decidedly
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No. 54
Cities Communications, Inc., 82 NY2d 466, 478 [1993]).  And we do
not do so here.  Instead, we acknowledge that "mere protestations
of good faith by a defendant do not preclude establishing actual
malice through other inferential or circumstantial proof" (see
Smolla & Nimmer at § 23:3, 23-18).  But we conclude that the
facts and circumstances adduced by plaintiff in this case could
not clearly and convincingly prove actual malice to the
satisfaction of a reasonable jury.  
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high standard of culpability has been set because "it is
essential that the First Amendment protect some erroneous
publications as well as true ones" (see St. Amant, 390 US at
732).  The actual malice standard recognizes that falsehoods
relating to public figures are "inevitable in free debate" and
that publishers must have sufficient "breathing space" (see
Hustler Mag. Corp. v Falwell, 485 US 46, 52 [1988]) so that the
First Amendment's commitment to "the principle that debate on
public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open" will
be realized (see Sullivan, 376 US at 270).  
We agree with the Appellate Division that the present
record lacks the clear and convincing evidence necessary for a
jury to conclude that defendant's inaccurate statements were
published with actual malice.  As an initial matter, plaintiff's
reliance upon the Post's failure to employ fact-checkers, to
attempt to verify the status of his license prior to publication,
or to identify those individuals responsible for the false
headline and statement is misplaced.  Put simply, such proof of
"[m]ere negligence does not suffice" to establish actual malice
by clear and convincing evidence (see Masson, 501 US at 510). 
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No. 54
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Conceivably, in an extreme case, a failure to investigate could
be so gross as to prove a willful avoidance of knowledge (cf.
Harte-Hanks, 491 US at 690-693), but this is not that case.
We are concerned here with whether there is "concrete"
or "affirmative evidence" (see Anderson, 477 US at 256, 257) in
the record that would allow a jury to conclude with "convincing
clarity" (see Freeman, 84 NY2d at 56) whether the Post's
employees actually entertained serious doubts about the truth of
the rewrite's inaccurate headline and sentence or that they
published those statements with a high degree of awareness of
their falsity.  Plaintiff argues that a jury applying the New
York Times actual malice standard could find in his favor because
the record establishes that a Post editor fabricated the facts
concerning plaintiff's licensure to make Gittens's rewrite "more
sensational[]" and thereby generate increased sales.  Other than
the fact that the rewrite contains two erroneous statements,
however, there is no evidence that Gittens, his editor Venezia,
or anyone else at the Post seriously doubted the truth of the
complained-of statements or was highly aware that they were
incorrect prior to publication.  Evidence of falsity does not
equate with proof of actual malice (see Mahoney v Adirondack
Publ. Co., 71 NY2d 31, 39-40 [1987]).
Given this lack of concrete proof, plaintiff relies
heavily upon Gittens's testimony that the lead paragraph of a
wire service article was usually edited to make it "more Post-
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No. 54
6  In this connection, the U.S. Supreme Court has concluded
that a defendant's profit motive in publishing allegedly false
and defamatory material does not "suffice to prove actual malice"
(see Harte-Hanks, 491 US at 667).  
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like."  But the full context of Gittens's testimony along with
his affidavit, Angelo's affidavit, and Venezia's testimony,
demonstrate that this short-hand phrase referred to stylistic
alterations and not to the fabrication of facts.  A writer can
make an article a "better read" and engage in "more interesting
word selection" without sacrificing factual integrity.  Clearly,
the First Amendment offers no shield to "calculated falsehoods"
(see Harte-Hanks, 491 US at 687 n 34, quoting Garrison v
Louisiana, 379 US 64, 75 [1964]; Cantrell v Forest City Publ.
Co., 419 US 245, 253 [1974]), but at no point does this record
even suggest that the Post set out to falsely defame plaintiff in
this instance, or other individuals regularly, to increase its
sales.6  Moreover, plaintiff's heavy reliance on the "more Post-
like" testimony is flawed since Gittens's deposition indicates
that he was using that jargon to refer to changes made to a
rewrite's lead paragraph.  Here, however, plaintiff does not
contend that that paragraph is inaccurate.  
We recognize the danger of awarding summary judgment
solely upon the defendant's professions of good faith in
publishing libelous material (see St. Amant, 390 US at 731-732). 
But the U.S. Supreme Court has instructed that a plaintiff must
be held to the burden of adducing clear and convincing evidence
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No. 54
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of actual malice at the summary judgment stage so long as there
has been a "full opportunity to conduct discovery" (see Anderson,
477 US at 257).  Here, there was such an opportunity.   But this
public figure plaintiff has come forward with nothing more than a
mere hope that a jury would discredit the Post employees'
testimony.  This is insufficient (see Anderson, 477 US at 256-
257, quoting Bose Corp., 466 US at 512 ["discredited testimony is
not normally considered a sufficient basis" for defeating a
proper summary judgment motion] [internal quotation and
alteration omitted]).  As we stated in Trails West, Inc. v Wolff
(32 NY2d 207 [1973]), it is "not enough" for a libel plaintiff
resisting a motion for summary judgment to rely upon "suspicion,
surmise, and accusation" (see id. at 221 [internal quotation
omitted]).  
Rather, 
as 
in 
Prozeralik 
v 
Capital 
Cities 
Communications,
Inc. (82 NY2d 466 [1993]), a plaintiff seeking jury resolution must
point to facts and circumstances that could prove actual malice
under the New York Times standard.  In that case, there was
evidence that a television and radio broadcaster's news employees
had surmised that plaintiff was a victim of a beating and abduction
possibly orchestrated by members of organized crime solely because
he, like "countless" other individuals, was a restauranteur in the
Niagara region (see id. at 475-476).  This assumption was sheer
"rootless speculation," lacking any "basis or source whatsoever"
(id.).  Although the defendant claimed to have verified the
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No. 54
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plaintiff's identity as the victim with a spokesperson for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation prior to issuing broadcasts
relaying that information to the public, the FBI's spokesperson
denied having made any such confirmation (id.).  Furthermore, the
broadcasts occurred during a period when the defendant's stations
were engaged in a ratings competition for advertising revenues and
after a rival television station had already announced the name of
the actual victim the night before the defendant's newscasts (id.).
And although the defendant did broadcast a retraction after being
made aware of its error, the retraction claimed that the FBI had
previously confirmed the plaintiff's status as the victim even
after the FBI spokesperson expressly told the broadcaster's news
director that this had not occurred (id.).  In light of these facts
and circumstances, we concluded that "[w]hile falsity alone and
negligence alone would not be sufficient to sustain plaintiff's
burden, there is enough in this case to submit the issue of actual
malice to a jury for factual resolution" (id. at 476).
The same cannot be said here.  First, the possible
revocation of defendant's license was accurately mentioned in a
lengthy Los Angeles Times wire service article.  Thus, plaintiff's
license controversy was not thrust into the public eye merely on
defendant's whim.  Second, there is no evidence that defendant's
employees 
intentionally 
or 
recklessly 
fabricated 
the 
relevant 
false
statements.  Although the actual status of plaintiff's license
could be verified through an accurate reading of the Times article,
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No. 54
7  According to the dissent, the Post's actions in this case
are "more egregious" than those at issue in Prozeralik because
there, although an accurate report was broadcast before
defendant's erroneous one, a reporter disputed the FBI
spokesperson's claim that the plaintiff's identity had not been
confirmed before the defendant's inaccurate report was aired (see
dissenting opn, at 7).  But "a highly and significantly discrete
feature" identified by this Court in refusing to dismiss for lack
of the requisite proof of actual malice was that "plaintiff's
name was initially injected randomly by defendant's own employees
merely because he happened to be a Niagara restauranteur" (see
Prozeralik, 82 NY2d at 477).  Moreover, the FBI employee's
testimony, "categorical[ly]" denying the purported confirmation,
provided "[d]irect evidence" that would permit a jury to infer
that the defendant "'knew or suspected'" that its statement was
false (see id. at 477-478).  There is simply no indication in
Prozeralik that the presence of an accurate news report,
contradicting defendant's, would have been enough to permit jury
resolution of the actual malice question.  It was simply one
factor that served to corroborate other record evidence that
supported an inference of actual malice (see id.).  
  Here, plaintiff's license controversy was a matter of
public knowledge prior to publication of the Post rewrite.  And
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this potentiality does not negate the possibility that Gittens or
his editors, all working under a deadline, simply misperceived the
correct statement in the Times article or draft rewrite (cf.
Mahoney, 71 NY2d at 40).  Certainly, there is no evidence that any
Post employee deliberately avoided consulting the Times article so
as to publish a more sensational, albeit concocted, story with an
untarnished mental state (cf. Harte-Hanks, 491 US at 690-693 [along
with other circumstantial evidence, newspaper's failure to
interview key witness or to listen to available tape recordings
that would verify or refute account of newspaper's source
constituted an actionable "purposeful avoidance of the truth"]
[internal citation omitted]).7 
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No. 54
there is not even circumstantial, let alone "direct," evidence
which could clearly and convincingly establish that defendant's
inaccurate rewrite was published with actual malice.  The
relevant evidence is simply that the Los Angeles Times article
was correct, that -- for some unexplained reason -- defendant's
re-write was not, and that defendant usually makes certain
stylistic edits in the course of preparing a rewritten wire
service story for publication in its newspaper.  This is not
enough.  
8  Unlike the retraction in Prozeralik, the Post's
"Correction," which was located in a portion of the paper similar
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Third, to the extent that plaintiff contends that the
Post's editors were motivated to "spice up" articles with invented
facts in order to increase the newspaper's paid circulation, the
December 7 rewrite would be a particularly poor vehicle for
advancing that goal.  The rewrite was inconspicuously placed on
page 24 of the defendant's publication, where it appeared dwarfed
in size by an adjacent, large-scale advertisement for home
furnishings and was positioned above a blotter-style column
entitled "Weird But true."  In this context, it is highly unlikely
that any member of the purchasing public would have chosen to buy
the Post based on the complained-of rewrite.  Even within the
rewrite itself, the sentence relevant to plaintiff's licensure did
not appear in the lead paragraph but was buried in the article's
sixth of eight paragraphs.  In fact, the lead paragraph correctly
stated that plaintiff was "under investigation."  Finally, unlike
in Prozeralik, when plaintiff's counsel confronted the Post with
the inaccuracy of its headline and sentence, the paper issued a
full retraction within plaintiff's requested timeframe.8  
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No. 54
to that where the December 7 rewrite was placed, does not purport
to be based on the Post's "independent investigation" (compare
dissenting opn, at 2 with Prozeralik, 82 NY2d at 470).  Rather,
it accurately states that the Post subsequently learned of its
error after attributing an erroneous report to the Los Angeles
Times.  
9  Contrary to the dissent's assertion, we do not
"conclude[] that the erroneous statements must have been
published as a result of mere mistake or negligence" (see
dissenting opn, at 8).  Our holding is limited to what the record
reveals.  It was plaintiff's burden to demonstrate that a
reasonable jury assessing this evidence could find actual malice
by clear and convincing evidence.  He has failed to do so.
  The dissent would "infer[]" actual malice from the Post's
access to the accurate Los Angeles Times article, its inability
to explain how its error occurred, and from the affidavit of a
"journalism expert," opining that "no rational journalist could
have" made the same mistake that the Post did (see id. at 7-8 & n
*).  At most, this constitutes evidence of the discrete libel
element of falsity, which is uncontested here, and of a failure
to adhere to some objectively reasonable standard of reporting,
which, standing alone, does not constitute clear and convincing
evidence of actual malice. 
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In sum, a reasonable jury confronted with these facts and
circumstances could not find with convincing clarity that
defendant's 
erroneous 
statements 
were 
published 
with 
actual 
malice.
Rather, the record bespeaks non-actionable mistake or negligence.9
Thus, a grant of summary judgment in defendant's favor was
appropriate.
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should
be affirmed, with costs. 
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Kipper v NYP Holdings Co., Inc. d/b/a The New York Post
No. 54
PIGOTT, J.(dissenting) :
I respectfully dissent.  The undisputed facts are
relatively simple:  The New York Post took a factually-accurate
Los Angeles Times article, which stated that the California
Medical Board had "moved to revoke" plaintiff's license, and
rewrote the article to falsely state, in the headline and in the
body of the article, that plaintiff's license had been "pulled"
and "revoked".  In my view, these facts raise, at the very least,
a question of fact as to whether the Post acted with "actual
malice".
I.
On December 7, 2003, the LA Times ran a 98-paragraph
story entitled:
"HARSH REALITY OF 'OSBOURNES' NO LAUGHING MATTER"
The article stated that, "The state medical board last week moved
to revoke Kipper's license, accusing him of gross negligence in
his treatment of other patients".
The Post obtained the LA Times story from the wire
service and edited it from 98 paragraphs to eight.  Apparently
not satisfied with the headline, the Post changed it to falsely
read:
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No. 054
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"OZZY'S RX DOC'S LICENSE PULLED"
and reported:  "Last week, the state medical board revoked
Kipper's license, accusing him of gross negligence in his
treatment of other patients, according to the Los Angeles Times"
(emphasis supplied).
Plaintiff's attorneys wrote to the Post and advised it
that the article stating that plaintiff's medical license had
been revoked was "false and defamatory" and "published with
reckless disregard for the truth."  The letter demanded that the
Post publish "a clear and unequivocal retraction of the . . .
falsehoods" in a manner, size and placement comparable to those
of the defamatory article." 
The Post subsequently printed a correction on page 26. 
The correction was in incredibly small print, situated among
mostly ads, and stated as follows:
CORRECTION
On Dec. 7, 2003, The Post reported that, according to The
Los Angeles Times, Dr. David Kipper, Ozzy Osbourne's doctor,
had his license revoked by the California Medical Board. 
The Post has since learned that the board is still
investigating Kipper's alleged practice of overprescribing
drugs to celebrity patients and has moved to revoke his
license, although no action has as yet been taken.
A fair reading of this "correction" is that the LA
Times had made a mistake and further investigation by the Post
had ferreted out the truth, a fact the Post is pointing out in an
obscure part of its newspaper.
Supreme Court held that the Post's motion for summary 
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No. 054
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judgment should be denied because it "has not presented evidence
that proves, as a matter of law, that the false statements in the
Article were published in good faith, the result of an
inadvertent misreading or miscopying that would be considered an
excusable mistake."  In making this determination, Supreme Court
pointed to the deposition testimony of Post reporter Lyle Hasani
Gittens that the Post's editors sometimes changed articles
submitted by reporters and that, when editing wire service
articles, the Post reporters routinely shortened them and changed
the lead paragraph "to make it more Post-like," that is, "less
boring than the Los Angeles Times".  The Appellate Division
reversed and dismissed the complaint.
II.
In support of its contention that the record fails to
contain evidence establishing actual malice with "convincing
clarity," the Post relies on remarkably foggy testimony of the
very people from whom the falsity originated, its own employees.
Gittens, the reporter who edited the LA Times story for
publication in the Post, testified that, because it came from the
wire service, the LA Times article had likely already been fact-
checked.  Rather than exonerate the Post, this testimony
underscores the significance of its conduct in printing false
information, since defendant admits that the LA Times article was
factually accurate before the Post edited it.  Notwithstanding
this fact, Gittens claims that he does not know how the false
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No. 054
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statement about plaintiff's license having been revoked found its
way into the article, nor does he recall editing the story to
include that information.  Todd Venezia, a reporter charged with
editing Gittens's version of the story, testified that he
occasionally edits the stories of other reporters but that he
does not recall the specifics of the article at issue here.  
The majority takes the position that based on the
aforementioned testimony, there is a "lack of concrete proof" as
to whether the Post "seriously doubted the truth of the
complained-of statements or was highly aware that they were
incorrect prior to publication" (maj op at 10-11).  But the issue
is not whether the Post doubted the truth or was aware of an
incorrect statement here; it is conceded that the Post created
the statements that, as the majority notes, are false and
defamatory.  A defendant should not be allowed to point to
alleged deficiencies in the record that are the product of its
employees' claimed inability to recall the circumstances
surrounding the editing of the article and be awarded summary
judgment.  The majority correctly observes, "[t]he circumstances
surrounding the Post's erroneous statement are not entirely
clear" (maj op at 2).  But it is that lack of clarity upon which
the majority relies in concluding that the record is devoid of
any evidence that would permit a jury to find that the Post
published the article with actual malice.  In my view, the fact
that defendant took a factually-accurate article and edited it to
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No. 054
- 5 -
reflect something completely untrue constitutes sufficient
evidence from which a jury could infer that defendant "'in fact
entertained serious doubts as to the truth of [its] publication'
(St. Amant v Thomson, 390 US 727, 731 [1968]) or acted with a
'high degree of awareness of . . . probable falsity' (Garrison v
Louisiana, 379 US 64, 74 [1964])" (Masson v New Yorker Magazine,
Inc., 501 US 496, 510 [1991]).  
The majority asserts that an inquiry into such matters
is a subjective one that requires this Court to focus on the
state of mind of the author at the time of the publication (maj
op at 8-9).  But this Court has held that to "conclude that no
prima facie case was even presented [against a defendant] because
its employees might have held an untarnished subjective state of
mind" is not compelled by federal or state jurisprudence, and has
cautioned that such an "approach and analysis . . . would erect a
logically impossible test which, by its practical application of
governing precedents, would inevitably result in no defamation
case ever qualifying for jury resolution" (Prozeralik v Capital
Cities Communications, Inc. (82 NY2d 466, 478 [1993]). 
Essentially, the majority's opinion does what this Court sought
to prohibit in Prozeralik:  it places the disposition of
defamation cases "into the unilateral control of defendant[]"
(id.).  
In my view, our Court's decision in Prozeralik compels
the denial of the Post's motion for summary judgment.  There, the
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defendant's news and radio casts identified the plaintiff--a
public figure--as the victim of an abduction, and reported that
the FBI was investigating whether said abduction was the result
of the plaintiff having owed money to a criminal enterprise. 
There was a dispute, however, between the FBI and the defendant's
reporter as to whether the FBI confirmed the plaintiff as the
victim.  Just hours after defendant last ran the inaccurate
story, it was confirmed that the plaintiff was not the victim of
the abduction, and the plaintiff subsequently filed a defamation
suit against the defendant, eventually obtaining a favorable
verdict.  
This Court refused to grant the defendant's motion to
dismiss the plaintiff's case, holding that the plaintiff met his
"evidentiary burden of establishing actual malice sufficient to
allow the jury . . . to find that defendant acted with a high
degree of awareness of 'probable falsity' or entertained 'serious
doubts' as to the truth of the broadcasts," stating that the
plaintiff "adduced cogent, direct evidence from which a jury
could have inferred that defendant knew or suspected that the
[plaintiff] was not the victim" (Prozeralik, 82 NY2d at 475
[emphasis supplied] [internal citations omitted]).  Such evidence
included proof that a competing news station ran a story the
previous evening identifying someone other than the plaintiff as
the victim, speculation by the defendant's employees that the
plaintiff was in fact the victim, and the disagreement between
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the FBI and the defendant's reporter as to whether the FBI told
the reporter that he could ""go with [the plaintiff's] name" if
the FBI did not call the reporter back (id. at 475-476).
Here, as in Prozeralik, another media outlet reported a
factually-accurate account of events the day before the false
information was published by the Post.  In my view, the conduct
of the Post in this case is more egregious than the conduct of
the defendant in Prozeralik because there is no dispute between
the Post and the LA Times concerning the accuracy of the original
article.  Unlike the disagreement between the FBI and the
reporter in Prozeralik, it is undisputed that plaintiff's license
had not been revoked, and the Post concedes that those parts of
the story concerning the revocation were in fact false. 
Moreover, it can be inferred from the mere fact that the
substance of the LA Times article was changed--without
explanation--to erroneously reflect that plaintiff's license had
been revoked that the Post entertained serious doubts as to the
truthfulness of the article.  Unlike the reporters in Prozeralik
who speculated that the plaintiff was the victim, the Post knew
or should have known from the body of the LA Times article that
plaintiff's license had not been revoked. 
As the majority states, more than "[m]ere negligence is
required to prove actual malice" (Masson, 501 US at 510). 
Whether defendant acted with mere negligence or actual malice,
under the circumstances of this case, should be submitted to a
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No. 054
1  It is important to note that plaintiff did not stand mute
in the face of defendant's motion for summary judgment; but
submitted, among other things, the affidavit of a journalism
expert who averred that no rational journalist could have
confused the meaning of the LA Times article with the meaning of
the Post article and the only inference that could be drawn from
that alleged mix-up (and the defamatory headline) was that the
action was intentional.
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jury, because an inference can be drawn from the facts in the
record, with convincing clarity, that the Post acted with actual
malice in publishing the article (i.e., it either knew that it
was false or acted with reckless disregard of whether it was
false or not).1  Rather than allowing a jury to make that
determination, however, the majority relies on the inability of
the Post's employees to recall exactly how the false publication
made it to print, and then concludes that the erroneous
statements must have been published as a result of mere mistake
or negligence (maj op at 15).  In my view, this is error and
deprives plaintiff of an opportunity to have a jury evaluate the
credibility of the Post's employees.  Therefore, I would reverse
the order of the Appellate Division and reinstate plaintiff's
complaint.  
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * 
Order affirmed, with costs.  Opinion by Judge Ciparick.  Chief
Judge Lippman and Judges Graffeo, Read, Smith and Jones concur.
Judge Pigott dissents and votes to reverse in an opinion.
Decided April 30, 2009