national public i don't get it what it looks like to me is you've got a public official you have the press criticizing a public official and then you have the public official suing for what the theories but they all mouth  variations of defamation and after what the supreme court did to the law defamation on public officials that i don't understand how they can make anything of it i think that so they're wrong so she was on her lunch break which she gambled in las vegas so a lot under under the caught her spending as much time here in the casino she did in seminars harris who makes roughly eighty thousand dollars a year was being paid by taxpayers while she played and the fact is don't get it you know everything when i was up for confirmation both times district court and circuit court for every single thing that i read about myself in the new york times was factually false well that this wall street journal was accurate but every single fact in the new york times was false and it was designed to be harmful and i can't speak for the wonderfulness of the confirmation process but i can speak to this in this  individual whose livelihood depends on this position she's attending a conference and king broadcasting service fish and slave films here for three days i doubt that that in your confirmation process anybody was filming you for a three day period at any place you were this was a circumstance where she was filming for that time period they were calling her room to see if she was there the fact of the matter was at most under the evidence that was presented she was gambling in the casino forty five minutes a day for some period of time when she was off on break the implication of the broadcast was she was on a publicly paid taxpayer paid for all it can be to her when in fact the testimony she provided indicated that she was working decision in the herring case there was another case involving king broadcasting you look for the fatality the circumstances to understand the defendant subjective and can't and when you look at the circumstances here you have the nature of the intrusion that was taking place you have the fact that it was false you haven't talked to me about the nature of the intrusion that it was a public affairs while it was a public official but king t v was riding up in the elevator with her to a room service issues they filming her they were filming her each and every day for three  they were making phone calls transformed media does well i've been a public official as well your honor but i don't think i've ever seen a circumstance where the media was ever involved to this degree in making the kind of intrusions into mr harrison's life that they were doing or does it matter what case makes that matter hereon case you're only looked at the good for the nature of the investigation was conducted you look at the circumstances the fatality the circumstances you look to the fact that there was a press conference that disabused came to some of these particularly with respect to those that pertain to the fact that she was working in a room a very significant factor in the evening sessions that she attended a party and they know what she's doing over there was that she said so in her press conference v was put on notice that there was a problem with what it was proposing to do from the press conference there was an additional fact that doesn't jump out at you from the record but i think it's very significant that is that the reporter involved in the case duane coleman actually shared the broadcast  broadcast before anybody else in the public that look what you need i think to show actual malice it's not merely that they believe this councilman they didn't like parrots and didn't believe  believe on their own free what we needed to know all that with the court needed to have here was in fact and in the context of mr mr compton's participation you have a hostile source a source hostile to miss harris who is one of the sources service and puts that out and it turns out to be false and it turns out they should not believe them i'm thinking that the likelihood is that c b s can be embarrassed but that there is absolutely zero indication that the information they had was wrong and they went ahead and then the last what was the indication we knew it was wrong from the from the press conference she put them on notice that there was a problem with this information that they should then at least that look the point is what the broadcast said was she circumstances under which the broadcast caster and a false life and it goes to the whether the whether the defendant in this in this case proceed with this broadcast casting the plaintiff in a false light with actual m that tends to establish that the media defendants knew that what they were saying was false that was the principal one year on that was the principal and the press conference by that you mean four times today to find out if she was there i just don't get why that does anything i mean it's a good are you going to tell rooms they can be doing anything they can be read in the newspaper and they can be packing their suitcases they can be having a private church service i think we have a private poker game behind a lot of violence going on there to the point she takes it know somebody is in their room and i have no idea what they're doing that she testified in that she indicated in a press conference and testified to the district court that i was working in close conjunction with the commissioners in seattle on commission business when i was contacted in my room she was not out shopping she was not out frolicking in the casino she was not out acting you know as somebody who was on a half paid frolicking detour but rather who someone was who was working for a false light goes to the fact the king t v indicated that this public official with taxpayer money was out shopping and gambling and doing all of these things that were illicit at three high speed internet she could be in a room shopping on the net well she could be with the testimony the record is different the district court simply disregarded that and said as a matter of summary judgment that actual malice can't be demonstrated here we believe that the fatality the circumstances requires the opportunity for let me turn very quickly to the aspect of the case involving the city in the firm heriot a certain stance also involving false light but also a duty to investigate under washington law the tyner case in particular there is a duty to appropriately investigate when there i statutory direction to proceed with an appropriate investigation heiner with the circumstance involving investigation of child abuse allegations in this particular case as the city itself acknowledges there is an affirmative duty on the part of the city to investigate allegations of hostile work environment investigations undertaken here was an investigation it was undertaken without a majority of the commission approving it was undertaken and with a resolution that said that you couldn't go to an outside firm to investigate such circumstances and then when the investigation was undertaken despite a list of people to be contacted provided to the firm who is undertaking the investigation they didn't choose to investigate any of those people provided to them by harris very similar to the circumstances in the in the tire faiths we believe under these circumstances the district court acted prematurely in dismissing claims in this various head against the city and against the washington firm arising out of this duty to appropriately investigate as well as holding her in a false light when you have an investigative report that was originally designed to investigate certain complaints involving hostile work environment within morphed into a complaint that involved looking at the chief investigator of such complaints without any particular direction to do so and the problem of a lack of a quorum on the part of this commission to approve any such  paragraph statement by reveal harris stating that mr coleman attended a press conference where i provided documents in defense of accusations which were published in an article in the seattle times which were it was reported while i was in las vegas absolutely nothing to do with what happened in las vegas as a matter of fact also on the record at pages four and five mr pollin actually sought to ask harris what she had done in las vegas we're on women in the move that kind of information so what did you do just go to what seminars is something harris there workshops and also giving events different events coleman and you and you went to those and brought back information harris yes i did again we only watch what don't harris subjectively believes that she is doing fine and that you simply going out and gambling on her own quote break unquote whatever that is or on her own quote lunch time unquote whatever that is is utterly irrelevant to the actual mal for investigating hostile work environment complaints prohibits them from going to an outside investigator that's actually not true there was a specific provision that said in the case of the complaint against department had that the be allowed so the language was changed but not to prohibit an outside investigator from coming in and handling the starting points all it did was make the language more general and permi officers it was investigating it internal complaints made by employees against mr harris and other employees within the commission that they were being harassed to a hostile work environment has been complaint by refusing yourself from the vote to undertake an investigation or by voting against the investigation that's what mysterious blood like to have happened here the two there are only three commissioners on the public's they do so just to get to this argument was raised for the first time on appeal if you look at the briefing in the summary judgment briefs there wasn't never a mention of because it's the first time that it has come up and i feel so you don't even have to consider it to the extent so please the court gerry sale here for the washington firm defense that's the washington firm the individual defense associate with the washington firm the washington firm was asked by the city to conduct an investigation into hostile work environment washington firm was asked to do in both the hostile work environment and also in the managerial issues the firm did that interviewing any number of people and concluded their investigation by determining that they did not have sufficient evidence to show a hostile work environment but that there were managerial problems including the handling of the hostile work environment complaint the first of it a confidential report to the city attorney has no dispute about  that there was actual malice meaning they knew what they were saying was falls or that they would act with reckless disregard of the falls that is something they said and they must prove that by clear and convincing evidence i'd like to make for quick points about that not necessarily in the order of their importance the first one is that while conceding in the state in the issue is actually correctly in their brief the plaintiff then miss characterizes what the question is and and states that there's the fact question concerning whether or not the interview that was the investigation that was conducted was negligent but this is a case of actual m of law to be applied to the investigation as opposed to defamation or false like not at all i think what they're saying there is simply no support of negligent defamation there's simply no tort of negligent defamation nor is there more well i think you course of the argument they try to change into a negligent standard and i simply want to god of course attention to that because what they have to show is intent or recklessness and they don't really attempt to do that at all the next point really stepped up washington for a clear and convincing standard that they must show they must show not just something but they must show something that would convince a trial a fact finder by clear and convincing evidence of actual malice claim completely fails for the reason that they've never even tried to stablish that there's anything false in that report and the fourth point i would like to make is regardless of this although that's the only real issue raised on appeal there are additional bases upon which summary judgment should be granted for the washroom from defense and that is they haven't proved the elements of any of their claims they haven't proved falsely for defamation they haven't proved as to the washington from any privacy tort all the washington firm did was evaluating her job performance and the hostile environment question and reported that your employer there's no false light there's no privacy toward involved there's no  nothing in regard to anything that was done by the washing firm that could in the least way be considered an offense against civilized society is necessary for outrage nor is there any indication of severe emotional distress in regard to rico particular case it was a case of whether or not the allegations of child abuse running to a father had been appropriately investigated by the department of social services and the washington supreme court indicated that in the context of the statute  confers a duty upon the state agency to appropriately investigate instances of child abuse that a cause of action is stated for negligent investing ation in the circumstance where the father's certain situation is not adequately investigated by the agency that's exactly what you have here you have a resolution that confers the civic duty on the city by the city and upon its officials to conduct workplace hostile workplace the investigations just like the statute existed  and that duty was breached in this particular set of circumstances we have a situation involving the city where there is no contract there is no indication of vote now that the allegation by the city is that they don't need to have a vote they don't need to meet any quorum requirements the commission can act through its individual commissioners to do whatever it wants the problem with that argument is the quorum issue was raised all the time in that case the district courts were on summary judgment involving the city malicious would defamatory well the problem with that argument is you're out of the original investigation was asked to look at look at what the workplace complainants it said about the hostile work environment the report doesn't even speak that they decided well we can't investigate we can't get a statement from the complaint so we're going to drop that and the only thing we're going to do is we're going to focus on this ferrous so that the basis for alleging that she'd been appropriately responded to workplace environment complaints that they haven't even made any findings regarding the validity of the workplace environment problems it's very difficult to see how this report can be complete when the very basis for the role so if an employer calls the detective and says i think an employee of mine is sexually heresy and subordinates put you at its crown and and report to me on whether whether it's true and the detective comes back insist no but we were that your employee is invested on your money and that's true that would be tortuous no i mean really that was false but the investigator at did not know it was false is it different because you have a crisp a specific resolution from the city involving hostile workplace kinds of investigations that was my thought if you have a specific investigation here and there was no finding of any hostile workplace because that was also my  the complaint find out why it's different because in this particular set of circumstances you don't have the kind of criminal the broad based criminal investigations a narrow investigation authorized pacifically by this particular commission to its employees as to what must take place it's not the same set of circumstances the investigation they go up they go out it's a it's a public buying without a public meeting without a public contract apparently without a vote authorizing an investigation into an employee and then the basis for the investigation which was the complaining individual for going to a hostile workplace environment no report is made and they only focus on this particular individual a completely different scenario in terms of what the investigation was and what they were obliged to do under their duty under the city