Case Title: Brock v. Thompson

Citation: 

Docket Number: 88912

State: oklahoma

Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Date: 1997-10-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
Brock v. Thompson  Brock v. Thompson 1997 OK 127 948 P.2d 279 68 OBJ 3316 Case Number: 88912 Decided: 10/14/1997 Modified: 04/03/1998 Supreme Court of Oklahoma JOHN A. BROCK, GEORGE KAISER, DAVID RAINBOLT, CHRISTINE F. FLETCHER, BOB HOWELL, CITIZENS AGAINST LAWSUIT ABUSE, INC., Petitioners v. THE HONORABLE DONALD D. THOMPSON, Judge of the District Court of Creek County, Twenty-Fourth Judicial District, Respondent, and JESSIE HUFF DURHAM, an individual, and BEAU WILLIAMS, an individual, Real Parties in Interest. ORIGINAL PROCEEDING FOR A PREROGATIVE WRIT [948 P.2d 281] ¶ 0 Petitioners seek to prohibit respondent judge from proceeding further in a district court tort action against them. ORIGINAL COGNIZANCE TAKEN; WRIT GRANTED James L. Kincaid, Brad R. Carson, Crowe & Dunlevy, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Frederick Dorwart and Michael J. Medina, Tulsa, Oklahoma for Petitioners,[948 P.2d 282] W. C. Sellers, W.C. "Bill" Sellers, Inc., Sapulpa, Oklahoma and W. C. Sellers, Jr., Bill Sellers, Sapulpa, Oklahoma for Real Parties in Interest. OPALA, J. [948 P.2d 282] ¶ 1 The dispositive issue tendered by this original proceeding for a writ of prohibition is whether the district court action against the petitioners, now pending before the respondent judge, is dismissible for want of actionable quality. We hold that (a) when measured by the applicable Conley v. Gibson I THE ANATOMY ¶ 2 This court's original cognizance is invoked to prohibit further proceedings in an action by two lawyers, Jessie Huff Durham and Beau Williams [respondents or plaintiffs], against Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, Inc. [CALA] and five of its leaders [collectively called CALA, petitioners or defendants]. The lawsuit is also pressed against World Publishing Company, the Gaylord Entertainment Company d/b/a The Oklahoma Publishing Co., and The Oklahoma Publishing Company, entities who are not parties to this original proceeding. Plaintiffs allege in their second amended petition below that (a) the defendants joined a conspiracy to undermine the democratic process and to injure the plaintiff "trial lawyers" ¶ 3 Although none of the attachments was affixed to the second amended petition below, these instruments were made part of the materials tendered here for our consideration by CALA and are specifically referenced by the plaintiffs in their response brief. The parties are hence deemed to have adopted these materials as fit for our analysis in entertaining this cause. RELIEF SOUGHT IN THIS COURT ¶ 4 In this original proceeding the petitioners seek dismissal of the district court [948 P.2d 284] action against them because of its chilling effect on their fundamental-law liberties that are at stake in the trial court process - i.e., their initiative-related legislative activities, their freedom of political speech and their right to petition the government for a change in the law. The plaintiffs counter that prohibition is not an appropriate remedy. ¶ 5 A prerogative writ that may be granted in the exercise of this court's supervisory control over inferior courts,5 prohibition will lie to arrest unauthorized or excessive use of judicial force.6 While erroneous denial of a motion to dismiss is not usually an error for which prohibition will issue, original cognizance will be taken to prohibit the use of unauthorized or excessive judicial force in entertaining nonactionable claims where, as here, valued fundamental-law rights are clearly implicated and their immediate protection from encroachment appears necessary.7 Must Be Assayed by the Conley v. Gibson Standard III THE PARTIES' ARGUMENTS ¶ 8 CALA argues the state and federal constitutional right to petition the government for redress of grievances absolutely protects from civil liability any communications intended to influence government action. IV ¶ 10 THE GOVERNING STATE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES A. ¶ 11 The Political Process of Lawmaking by Initiative ¶ 12 The Oklahoma system of constitutional democracy authorizes the electorate to legislate directly by initiating and passing measures that may change the State's constitution as well as her statutes. ¶ 13 Legislative Immunity ¶ 14 The Speech or Debate Clause of the Oklahoma Constitution, Art. 5, §22,26 absolutely protects legislators from suit calling for judicial inquiry into their performance "within the sphere of legitimate legislative activity."27 Legislators may not be haled into court, either to account for acts that occurred in the course of legislative process or for judicial inquiry into their motivation for those acts.28 The legislative privilege has [948 P.2d 288] never been limited to words spoken in debate.29 The constitution's immunity shields all enactment-related conduct, whether a legislator30 be sued (1) personally, (2) in an official capacity, or (3) as the Legislature's leader.31 The line separating protected from unprotected legislative activity lies in the distinction between "purely legislative activities" and those that are nongermane "political matters".32 ¶ 15 Protected Political Speech ¶ 16 Restraint upon free speech is prohibited by the terms of Art. 2, § 22, Okl. Const.33 The State's free-speech guarantee protects the public by allowing issues to be freely and vigorously discussed.34 Advocacy for or against a proposed law is the purest form of political speech.35 A state cannot [948 P.2d 289] burden the free exchange of ideas about the objective of an initiative proposal.36 ¶ 17 The Right to Petition for Redress of Grievances ¶ 18 The right of the people to petition the government for redress of grievances is safeguarded in Art.2, § 3 of the state constitution.37 Legitimate attempts to influence government action are protected by this fundamental guarantee.38 The clear import of the right-to-petition clause is to immunize from exposure to legal action persons who attempt to induce the passage or enforcement of law or to solicit governmental action, even though the result of such activities may indirectly cause injury to others.39 Analysis of the Facts [948 P.2d 290] ¶ 19 At the very outset our task here is to determine whether the November 14, 1994 letter - the sole publication complained of in the plaintiffs' first amended petition below (as well as in their brief in this original cause) which is attributable to CALA - is protected by the State's fundamental law. ¶ 20 Promoters of an initiative petition drive at its circulation stage clearly act as political advocates for lawmaking through the initiative process. Their activities stand protected by legislative immunity through Oklahoma jurisprudence which teaches that (when circulating and signing initiative or referendum petitions) the people act in their legislative capacity.40 The promoters' circulation-related activities as well as their advocacy of a petition by advertisements, distribution of leaflets or soap-box utterances urging the people to sign the petition and by similar conduct all are to be viewed as the functional equivalent of a floor speech or committee argument. The constitutional legislative privilege from liability extends to all germane activities of the initiative process.41 ¶ 22 Promoting legal change by any form of publicity in advance of the petition's pre-circulation filing is critical to the initiative process because the promoters must be able to ventilate the issues before those who are expected to join in the effort by signing the petition. Advocacy that is an essential step to launching an initiative drive is part of the process for petitioning the electorate and for ultimately impacting the government. If there is a rational connection between the communication or utterance complained of as defamatory and the author's quest for a political change, the communication should be viewed as protected both as political speech and a means of securing a change in the government's conduct of its business. While the so-called offending conduct may be injurious or offensive to plaintiffs' interests, it nonetheless constitutes protected political speech which must be more jealously and intensely guarded than any other form of permissible expression. ¶ 24 Under our system of government, no one can be made responsible civilly or to the government for robustly pressing political views that others oppose with equal vigor. V THE PLAINTIFFS' THEORIES OF LIABILITY A. ¶ 25 Defamation ¶ 26 According to the respondents' argument, the petitioners' publication (of the November 14 letter) ¶ 27 Actions for libel are statutorily defined. A publication is libelous per se (when the defamatory impact is apparent on its face) if it "exposes any person to public hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy, or which tends to deprive him of public confidence, or to injure him in his occupation. . . ." ¶ 30 Based on the four corners of the petition and, applying the Conley v. Gibson B. ¶ 31 The Tortious Interference With Respondent's Advantageous Business Relations (Present and Prospective) ¶ 32 The respondents appear to press a common-law claim for tortious interference with advantageous business relations. C. ¶ 34 The Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress ¶ 35 Oklahoma recognizes as an independent tort the intentional infliction of emotional distress. ¶ 36 In this case scenario the offensive activity is both protected and nondefamatory. These two characteristics, when combined, take the conduct tendered as legally harmful out of the ambit of that character of outrageousness which is required to make it actionable under the tort-of-outrage rubric. ¶ 37 Measured by the Conley v. Gibson standard, the respondents cannot advance against the petitioners a tort-of-outrage claim that would warrant relief. ¶ 38 Civil Conspiracy ¶ 39 A civil conspiracy consists of a combination of two or more persons to do an unlawful act, or to do a lawful act by unlawful means.66 Unlike its criminal counterpart, civil conspiracy itself does not create liability. To be liable the conspirators must pursue an independently unlawful purpose or use an independently unlawful means.67 There can be no civil conspiracy where the act complained of and the means employed are lawful.68 Constitutionally protected speech that renders a defamation claim nonactionable also serves to defeat a claim of conspiracy where the means allegedly employed to achieve that purpose are lawful.69 ¶ 41 As explained in Part V(A) supra, there is here no element of unlawfulness in the petitioners' act of combining and no unlawful elements in the objectives to be pursued. Because the arguments advanced in the November 14, 1994 letter have a direct bearing on the subject of the initiative to be launched, they constitute political advocacy in favor of a proposed legal change - a clearly protected core political speech. It is not unlawful to join with others in a common effort to bring about legal change by lawful means (via the initiative or by petitioning the government). ¶ 42 Within the meaning of the Conley v. Gibson ¶ 43 Today's holding that the plaintiffs have failed to state against the petitioners a claim upon which relief may be afforded has its basis in the free-speech and right-to-petition protections afforded by the Oklahoma Constitution. U. S. Supreme Court jurisprudence need not be dispositive in passing upon rights guaranteed by state constitutional provisions. The Oklahoma Constitution affords bona fide, separate, adequate, and independent grounds upon which today's opinion is rested. VI ¶ 44 FEDERAL JURISPRUDENCE ¶ 45 We note there is some expression in the federal jurisprudence about the notion that the First Amendment's right to petition the government for relief from grievances SUMMARY ¶ 46 Prohibition will lie to arrest pending proceedings when the remedy of appeal is manifestly inadequate to protect against the chilling effect of a civil action on fundamental political freedom and the action to be prohibited lacks actionable quality. The state constitutional shield surrounding political activity protects these petitioners from the burden of defending themselves in court for the conduct that forms the basis of the claim sought to be prosecuted against them. ¶ 47 Based on the four corners of the second amended petition (with recognized materials) and applying the Conley v. Gibson ¶ 48 ORIGINAL COGNIZANCE TAKEN; WRIT GRANTED. ¶ 49 SUMMERS, V.C.J., HODGES, LAVENDER and OPALA, JJ., and STRUBHAR, S.J. (sitting by designation in lieu of KAUGER, C.J., who certified her recusal), concur; WILSON SIMMS, HARGRAVE FOOT