Case Title: Plaintiff v. Defendant

Citation: 

Docket Number: a-34-99

State: new-jersey

Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Date: 2000-08-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized). VERNIERO, J., writing for a majority of the Court. In this appeal, the Court considers the application of the doctrine of presumed damages to a claim of defamation asserted by the plaintiff, Ana Rocci, a teacher. Plalntiff, Ana Rocci, and defendant, Edward Tilli, are teachers who took students on a trip to Spain in 1995. Rocci, a teacher at St. Joseph's High School in Metuchen, accompanied by twenty-three students from that school, joined Tilli, a teacher at Ecole Secondaire Macdonald-Cartier (Ecole) of Ontario, Canada, and ten students from that school for the trip. After the trip, on May 9, 1995, Tilli wrote a letter to the principal of St. Joseph's High School, complaining about Rocci's allegedly unprofessional conduct during the course of the trip. Specifically, he complained that, among other things, Rocci had consumed seven bottles of wine on the plane and had kept the students out late on numerous occasions. At some point following the principal's receipt of Tilli's letter, Rocci commenced an action for defamation against Tilli and the tour guide, among others. In her complaint, Rocci alleged that she had suffered loss of earnings and grievous mental injury in that she was exposed to the contempt and ridicule of her friends and acquaintances and was rendered outraged in mind, spirit and body, to the extent that she required prolonged medical treatment to restore her health. Subsequently, at her deposition, Rocci stated that she was neither fired nor suspended from her teaching position; that she was able to prove to the principal the falsity of the statements contained in the letter; and that she did not suffer any economic damages. In addition, although she had attributed a digestive ailment to anxiety she experienced after receiving the letter, Rocci admitted that she did not incur any medical expenses related to the alleged defamation. Finally, Rocci testified that she was upset by students' inquiries about the wine she allegedly drank on the airplane. She acknowledged however that she herself had shown Tilli's letter to the students in an effort to have them discredit his accusations. The trial court granted Tilli's and Ecole's motion for summary judgment. In dismissing Rocci's complaint, the trial court concluded that Tilli's letter was not defamatory and noted that Rocci had not alleged pecuniary damages. Although the Appellate Division acknowledged that the letter could be defamatory and concluded that Rocci's European undertaking with her students did not implicate a public interest, it affirmed the trial court's dismissal of Rocci's complaint. Citing the Supreme Court's decision in Sisler v. Gannett Co., 104 N.J. 256 (1986), a majority of the panel concluded that to maintain a claim of defamation under New Jersey common law, a plaintiff must prove that her reputation has been injured, that she suffered pecuniary loss, or that she suffered extreme emotional distress. One member of the panel dissented. Relying on the doctrine of presumed damages, Judge Lesemann concluded that proof of actual harm is not a prerequisite to Rocci's right to recover damages. The matter was before the Supreme Court as of right, based on Judge Lesemann's dissent below. Following oral argument in the matter, the Court afforded the parties the opportunity to submit supplemental briefs concerning whether Tilli's letter implicated the public interest. In response, the parties, as well as the New Jersey Press Association as amicus curiae, submitted briefs on the issue. In their briefs, defendants Tilli and Ecole contended that because Tilli's letter implicated the public interest, Rocci could not presume damages and would have to prove actual malice to sustain her suit. In contrast, Rocci argued that, even though the letter implicated a matter of public concern, she should be permitted to present her case to the jury to demonstrate that defendants were motivated by malice. HELD: Defendant's allegedly defamatory letter, which implicated the public interest, requires heightened free-speech protections; thus, reputational or pecuniary harm may not be presumed absent a showing of actual malice as defined under New York Times v. Sullivan. 2. When alleged defamatory remarks touch on a matter of public concern, the interests of free speech justify, and fairness to individual reputation permits, application of a strict and high burden of proof to establish actionable defamation. Thus, a plaintiff asserting a defamation claim in that context cannot rely on the doctrine of presumed damages absent a finding that defendant published the statement with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. (pp. 8-9) 3. Because there is a strong public interest in the behavior of teachers, especially concerning their conduct with and around their students, Rocci may not rely on the doctrine of presumed damages and must allege more than mere embarrassment to survive summary judgment. (pp. 9-10) 4. Jurisprudence should not act to chill complaints about a teacher's behavior in the presence of students or similar matters involving the public interest. (pp. 10-11) 5. By discouraging frivolous defamation actions, motions for summary judgment keep open lines of communication to the public on matters of public concern. (pp. 11-12) 6. Rocci's only claim of harm is embarrassment, which was caused by her own distribution of Tilli's letter. Because the alleged defamatory material involves a matter of public concern, which is at the heart of the First Amendment and thus requires enhanced protection, Rocci may not survive a motion for summary judgment when she has failed to provide any evidence of harm to her beyond her embarrassment. (pp. 12-13) 7. Applying the actual-malice standard in the context of summary judgment, even when considering the evidence in the light most favorable to Rocci, a reasonable factfinder could not find clear and convincing evidence of actual malice on Tilli's part. (pp. 13-14) 8. The question of whether the doctrine of presumed damages should apply to claims made by a private-figure plaintiff when no public interest is implicated is reserved for the future. (pp. 14-15) JUSTICE O'HERN filed a separate opinion in which he dissented from the majority's opinion for the reasons expressed by Judge Lesemann in his dissent below. At a minimum, Justice O'Hern believed that Rocci should have been permitted to present her case to a jury without having to prove special damages other than the damage to her good name. As modified, judgment of the Appellate Division is AFFIRMED. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES STEIN, COLEMAN, LONG, and LaVECCHIA join in JUSTICE VERNIERO's opinion. JUSTICE O'HERN has filed a separate dissenting opinion. ANA ROCCI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ECOLE SECONDAIRE MACDONALD CARTIER, a foreign entity and EDWARD TILLI, Defendants-Respondents, and JAVIER MATIACCI RODRIGUEZ and JOHN DOE (1-10), Defendants. Argued February 15, 2000 -- Decided August 1, 2000 On appeal from the Superior Court, Appellate Division, whose opinion is reported at 323 N.J. Super. 18 (1999). Jacqueline R. Rocci argued the cause for appellant. Michael T. Kearns argued the cause for respondent (Hoagland, Longo, Moran, Dunst & Doukas, attorneys; Donald D. Davidson, of counsel). Thomas J. Cafferty argued the cause for amicus curiae, New Jersey Press Association (McGimpsey & Cafferty, attorneys; Mr. Cafferty and Arlene M. Turinchak, on the briefs). Monday, April 17 . . . . In the evening your students were forced out until 1:30 a.m. and were scheduled to get up and leave for Tangiers, Morocco at 4:30 a.m. As usual the students were very tired and had difficulties in enjoying Tangiers. (Information related by both students and Tour Guide). Plaintiff commenced an action for defamation against Tilli, cole secondaire, tour guide Javier Matiacci Rodriguez, and ten unnamed defendants. Rodriguez and the unnamed defendants are not represented in this litigation. Additionally, although Rodriguez was identified as a defendant, plaintiff's complaint alleged no claims against Rodriguez. 323 N.J. Super. at 21 n.1. In her complaint, plaintiff alleged the following damages: loss of earnings and grievous mental injury in that she was exposed to the contempt and ridicule of her friends and acquaintances and was rendered outraged in mind, spirit and body, to the extent that she required prolonged medical treatment to restore her health. However, at her deposition, plaintiff stated that she was neither fired nor suspended from her teaching position and that she did not suffer any economic damages. She further stated that after the letter arrived at her school she met with the principal and, using information provided by her colleagues and students, she proved the falsity of the statements to the principal. Although she attributed a digestive ailment to anxiety she experienced after receiving the letter, plaintiff stated that she did not incur medical expenses related to the alleged defamation. Finally, plaintiff testified that she was upset by students' inquiries about the wine she allegedly drank on the airplane, but she acknowledged that she showed the letter from Tilli to the students in an effort to have them discredit Tilli's accusations. On motion by defendants Tilli and cole secondaire, the Law Division granted summary judgment in favor of defendants. That court concluded that Tilli's letter was not defamatory, and also noted that plaintiff had not alleged pecuniary damages. Although the Appellate Division acknowledged that the letter could be defamatory and concluded that plaintiff's European undertaking with her students did not implicate a public interest, 323 N.J. Super. at 22, it affirmed the trial court's disposition. Citing this Court's decision in Sisler v. Gannett Co., 104 N.J. 256, 280, 291 (1986), the panel held that to maintain a claim of defamation under New Jersey common law a plaintiff must prove that her reputation has been injured, that she suffered pecuniary loss, or that she suffered extreme emotional distress. 323 N.J. Super. at 23-24. One member of the panel dissented. The dissenting member, relying on the doctrine of presumed damages, concluded that proof of actual harm is not a prerequisite to plaintiff's right to recover damages. Id. at 27 (Lesemann, J.S.C., dissenting). Plaintiff appealed to this Court as of right pursuant to Rule 2:2-1(a)(2). Following oral argument, we afforded the parties the opportunity to submit supplemental briefs concerning whether defendant Tilli's letter implicated the public interest. In response, the parties, as well as the New Jersey Press Association as amicus curiae, submitted briefs in which they discussed that question. Defendants Tilli and cole secondaire contend that because Tilli's letter implicated the public interest, plaintiff could not presume damages and would have to prove actual malice to sustain her suit. In contrast, plaintiff argues that, although the letter implicated a matter of public concern, she should be permitted to present her case to the jury to demonstrate that defendants were motivated by malice. ANA ROCCI, Plaintiff Appellant, v. ECOLE SECONDAIRE MACDONALD-CARTIER, a foreign entity and EDWARD TILLI, Defendants Respondents, and JAVIER MATIACCI RODRIGUEZ and JOHN DOE (1-10), Defendants. O'HERN, J., dissenting. As the late William Prosser observed many years ago, There is a great deal about the law of defamation which makes no sense. Matters are even worse today. According to the authors of a leading casebook, [t]he current state of libel law has been deplored by almost everyone affected by it. Plaintiffs are dissatisfied, in large part because their success rate is extremely low, while defendants are frustrated because they cannot prevail earlier in the litigation and thus, incur substantial litigation costs. . . . [M]any, if not most, of the problems in modern defamation law can be traced to its constitutionalization by the Supreme Court . . . . [Cynthia Nance, The Uniform Correction or Clarification of Defamation Act: How Not to Reform Arkansas Defamation Law, 51 Ark. L. Rev. 721 (1998).] In this case, which makes no sense to me, I dissent primarily for the reasons stated by Judge Lesemann in the Appellate Division. 323 N.J. Super. 18, 26(App. Div. 1999). The only issue before us is the viability of the doctrine of presumed damages. In Ward v. Zelikovsky, 263 N.J. Super. 497 (App. Div. 1993), Judge Antell traced the history of the requirement of special damages in slander actions to the ancient divisions between ecclesiastical courts and the King's courts. Ecclesiastical courts had jurisdiction over spiritual matters and the King's Court over temporal matters. Defamation without temporal losses was a sin to be punished in the church courts. The requirement of special damages was an accident of history designed to resolve a jurisdictional conflict. Justice Holmes once noted that whenever we trace a leading doctrine of substantive law far enough back, we are very likely to find some forgotten circumstance of procedure at its source. Oliver W. Holmes, Jr. The Common Law 253 (1991). Presumed damages were simply a procedural device to get out of the church courts. It is one thing to state that damages for defamation may not be presumed in cases of public concern without a showing of actual malice. It is quite another thing to say that one does not suffer damages from defamation unless pecuniary or special loss may be proven. In Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 10, 110 S. Ct. 2695, 2701 (1990), Chief Justice Rehnquist quoted the familiar lines from Shakespeare's Othello: Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash; 'Tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed. Defamation law developed as a means of allowing an individual to vindicate her good name, and also for the purpose of obtaining redress for harm caused by such statements. Ibid. (citing L. Eldredge Law of Defamation 5 (1978) (emphasis added)). Preventing and redressing attacks upon reputation is one of the important social values underlying the law of defamation. Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U.S. 75, 86, 86 S. Ct. 669, 676, 15 L. Ed. 2d 597, 605 (1966). Under New Jersey law, four kinds of statements qualify as slander per se that is defamation that in and of itself injures the person: accusing another (1) of having committed a criminal offense, (2) of having a loathsome disease, (3) of engaging in conduct or having a condition or trait incompatible with his or her business, or (4) of having engaged in serious sexual misconduct. Biondi v. Nassimos, 300 N.J.Super. 148, 154 (App. Div. 1997). In this case, in which defendant's allegedly defamatory statements were written instead of oral, the Court holds that plaintiff must produce evidence of special damage to her reputation. This requirement of temporal losses (rooted as it was in antipathy to ecclesiastical courts) serves no legitimate purpose today. Are we really to expect that a defamed teacher must produce witnesses who will testify that they believed the false and malicious gossip spread about her by a teacher who went on the school trip with her? Would a judge who was falsely libeled as having been drunk on the bench have to produce lawyers or judges to say that yes, indeed we did believe that the judge was an inebriate ? I should think not. At common law, a libel plaintiff who established that he was the subject of a published defamatory statement was presumed, without the necessity of specific trial proof, to have been damaged. In Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 349, 94 S. Ct. 2997, 3011, 41 L. Ed. 2d 789, 810-11 (1974). Justice Powell, writing for the majority and disapproving of the doctrine of presumed damages, commented: The common law of defamation is an oddity of tort law, for it allows recovery of purportedly compensatory damages without evidence of actual loss. Under the traditional rules pertaining to actions for libel, the existence of injury is presumed from the fact of publication. Juries may award substantial sums as compensation for supposed damage to reputation without any proof that such harm actually occurred. Without the limiting restraint of trial proof, juries were able to punish unpopular opinion or unpopular defendants. Repudiating the common law libel doctrine of presumed damages, the Court held: "For the reasons stated below, we hold that the States may not permit recovery of presumed or punitive damages, at least when liability is not based on a showing of knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth." Gertz, supra, 418 U.S. at 349, 94 S. Ct. at 3011, 41 L. Ed. 2d at 810.See footnote 11 The converse proposition, of course, is that, if actual malice is established, plaintiff is entitled to recover presumed damages without proof of loss of reputation or damages. When in Sisler v. Gannett Co., 104 N.J. 256 (1986), we required a showing of actual malice in order to recover presumed damages in matters implicating the public concern, we did not intend the converse _ that consequential special or economic damages were required as a condition to the recovery of damages to reputation. Gertz simply held, as a matter of federal constitutional law, that all such libel plaintiffs must prove actual injury and damage. Gertz itself explained: Suffice it to say that actual injury is not limited to out-of-pocket loss. Indeed, the more customary types of actual harm inflicted by defamatory falsehood include impairment of reputation and standing in the community, personal humiliation and mental anguish and suffering. Of course, juries must be limited by appropriate instructions, and all awards must be supported by competent evidence concerning the injury, although there need be no evidence which assigns an actual dollar value to the injury. [Gertz, supra, 418 U.S. at 350, 94 S. Ct. at 3012, 41 L. Ed. 2d at 811.] Canino v. New York News, Inc., 96 N.J. 189,(1984) held that a defamation action survives death under the Survival Act. We reasoned that the earlier New Jersey courts had held that libel or slander, an injury to the person, quite apart from economic loss, was a trespass or, as it was known then and now, a tort. Id. at 195 (emphasis added). At common law, for an injury to the person, such as an assault or battery, one need not establish economic damages _ only the hurt itself. Had this been an action in slander (that is, for oral defamation), a statement that adversely reflected on the plaintiff's fitness as a teacher (what is worse than a drunken teacher?) would fall within the categories of slander per se that do not require a showing of special damages. Such damages, referred to as general damages in the context of defamation law, are to be distinguished from an award of mere nominal damages. They may, upon a showing of slander per se, be awarded without any proof going to damages upon the theory that the jury, by its own understanding, is competent to calculate approximate compensation for the injury to the plaintiff's feelings and reputation that would naturally flow from the publication of such derogatory remarks. Charles T. McCormick, Handbook on the Law of Damages 116 (1935) (citing Doherty v. L.B. Price Merchantile Co., 132 39, 95 So. 790, 790-91 (1923); Hubbard v. Rutledge, 52 Miss. 581 (1976)). General damages in defamation law constitute those losses that are normally, usually, and foreseeably caused by the harm to the plaintiff's reputation. General damages may encompass not only monetary harm, but also those losses that are not readily subject to economic calculation, such as losses to one's enjoyment of life, damage to one's dignity, and damage to one's relationships with others. Restatement (Second) of Torts 621 cmt. a. In Dun & Bradstreet, the Supreme Court recognized that the rationale for the common-law rules was the experience and judgment of history that proof of actual damage will be impossible in a great many cases where, from the character of the defamatory words and the circumstances of publication it is all but certain that serious harm has resulted in fact. 472 U.S. at 760, 105 S. Ct. at 2946, 86 L. Ed. 2d at 603 (citing W. Prosser, Law of Torts 112, p. 765 (4th ed. 1971). [ 21 N.J. 471, 475 (1956) (emphasis added).] Consistent with that philosophy, the Court has always recognized that "justice is the polestar [of our judicial system] and our procedures must be moulded and applied with that in mind," New Jersey Highway Auth. v. Renner, 18 N.J. 485, 495, (1955), and we have consistently held that "the paramount policies of our law require that . . . the plaintiff be afforded an opportunity to have the claim adjudicated on the merits." Crispin v. Volkswagenwerk, A.G., 96 N.J. 336, 338 (1984). I would do that here. Rather than to surprise plaintiff with a theory that she has never had the chance to meet, I would let her have her day in court. NO. A-34 ANA ROCCI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ECOLE SECONDAIRE MACDONALD- CARTIER, a foreign entity and EDWARD TILLI, Defendants-Respondents, and JAVIER MATIACCI RODRIGUEZ and JOHN DOE (1-10), Defendants. DECIDED August 1, 2000 Chief Justice Poritz