Title: Jackson v. Hartig

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  Hassell, C.J., Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, 
and Agee, JJ., and Russell, S.J. 
 
TIMMY JACKSON 
 
v.  Record No. 061505  OPINION BY JUSTICE CYNTHIA D. KINSER 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
June 8, 2007 
DENNIS A. HARTIG, ET AL. 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF NORFOLK 
Junius P. Fulton, III, Judge 
 
 
This appeal involves an action for defamation brought 
by an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Virginia 
House of Delegates against the author and publisher of a 
newspaper editorial endorsing the candidate’s opponent.  
Because we conclude that there are no material facts 
genuinely in dispute and that the evidence in the record 
would not permit a reasonable fact finder to conclude, by 
clear and convincing evidence, that the defendants acted 
with actual malice, we will affirm the judgment of the 
circuit court granting summary judgment for the defendants 
and dismissing the defamation action with prejudice. 
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS 
Timmy Jackson was elected to a four-year term on the 
City of Virginia Beach School Board (the School Board) that 
began in July 1994.  At that time, the outgoing School 
Board had already approved a budget for the 1994–1995 
school year.  In 1995, the School Board was notified that 
 
2
it was operating at a deficit, prompting several members of 
the School Board to resign.  A special grand jury convened 
to investigate the causes of the budget deficit, and on 
February 26, 1996, it issued a report recommending that the 
remaining members of the School Board who had served during 
the 1994–1995 school year resign or face criminal 
prosecution for violating Code § 22.1-91.1  All School Board 
members except Jackson and Ferdinand V. Tolentino resigned.  
Jackson and Tolentino were each subsequently indicted for 
the misdemeanor charge of malfeasance related to the School 
Board budget deficit during the 1994–1995 school year, but 
a jury acquitted both on August 14, 1996.  Jackson 
continued to serve on the School Board until the end of his 
term. 
In 1998, Jackson ran for election to a seat on the 
Virginia Beach City Council.  On May 3, 1998, the 
Virginian-Pilot, a newspaper published by Landmark 
                     
1 Code § 22.1-91 provides: 
 
No school board shall expend or contract to expend, in 
any fiscal year, any sum of money in excess of the funds 
available for school purposes for that fiscal year without 
the consent of the governing body or bodies appropriating 
funds to the school board.  Any member of a school board or 
any division superintendent or other school officer 
violating, causing to be violated or voting to violate any 
provision of this section shall be guilty of malfeasance in 
office. 
 
 
3
Communications, Inc. (Landmark), printed an editorial 
endorsing Jackson’s candidacy for city council, stating: 
Jackson has achieved much on the School Board and 
promises to be a strong voice for education on 
council.  This former police sergeant has shown 
himself to be a man of integrity who refused to 
allow himself to be bullied off the School Board 
by the commonwealth’s attorney two years ago.  
Jackson insisted he was blameless in the matter 
of the school system’s $12 million deficit – 
caused by the then-school superintendent and his 
deputies.  A jury agreed, and Jackson was 
exonerated. 
 
Despite the Virginian-Pilot’s endorsement, Jackson lost the 
election for city council. 
 
Jackson made another bid for public office in 2003, 
this time seeking to represent the twenty-first House of 
Delegates district.2  On November 1, 2003, three days prior 
to the election, the Virginian-Pilot published an editorial 
written by Dennis A. Hartig that contained the following 
statements: 
[W]e have deep misgivings about Jackson’s 
qualifications . . . . 
 
Jackson, a former police officer and Republican, 
was honored to be among the first citizens 
elected to the Virginia Beach School Board.  It 
turned out badly. 
 
It was on his watch that the schools went 
millions of dollars in the red, a disaster that 
                     
2 All of the twenty-first House of Delegates district 
is located within the City of Virginia Beach.  Code § 24.2-
304.01. 
 
4
took years to overcome.  Jackson was indicted for 
malfeasance, but was exonerated, then resigned. 
 
Jackson has given us no reason why voters should 
forgive this blot on his record.  Now he wants 
voters to trust him to oversee a state budget 200 
times as large as the School Board’s.  That’s 
asking too much. 
 
On the morning of the election, the Virginian-Pilot, at 
Jackson’s request, printed a correction of its misstatement 
that Jackson had resigned his seat on the School Board.  
Jackson lost the election. 
 
Jackson subsequently filed a motion for judgment 
against Hartig and Landmark in the Circuit Court of the 
City of Portsmouth, alleging that Hartig and Landmark 
published false and defamatory statements about him in the 
Virginian-Pilot’s November 1, 2003 editorial.  Jackson 
claimed that Hartig and Landmark either knew that these 
statements were false at the time of their publication or 
printed them with reckless disregard for whether they were 
true or false.  Jackson premised this allegation, in part, 
on their variance from the supposedly “factually accurate” 
statements appearing in the Virginian-Pilot’s May 3, 1998 
editorial.  Jackson further alleged that Hartig and 
Landmark knew that the portion of the November 1, 2003 
editorial stating, “It was on his watch that the schools 
went millions of dollars in the red” was false because the 
 
5
defendants knew not only that the 1994-1995 School Board 
budget had already been approved when Jackson began his 
tenure on the School Board, but also that the School Board 
did not operate at a deficit during any of the years in 
which Jackson voted to approve the budget.  Jackson relied 
on these same alleged facts to assert that Hartig and 
Landmark knew their statement characterizing the deficit as 
“a disaster that took years to overcome” was false.  
Jackson also claimed that Hartig and Landmark knew that 
Jackson had not resigned from the School Board, but had 
publicly refused to do so.  Finally, the November 1, 2003 
editorial, according to Jackson, accused him of criminal 
activity even though Hartig and Landmark knew that a jury 
had found Jackson not guilty of the malfeasance charge. 
Along with a demurrer and grounds of defense, Hartig 
and Landmark filed a motion to transfer venue to the 
Circuit Court of the City of Virginia Beach.  The Circuit 
Court of the City of Portsmouth granted the defendants’ 
motion, but it gave Jackson the option of having the case 
transferred to either the Circuit Court of the City of 
Virginia Beach or the Circuit Court of the City of Norfolk, 
where Landmark’s corporate offices were located.  Without 
waiving his objection to the circuit court’s decision 
granting the motion to transfer venue, Jackson chose the 
 
6
Circuit Court of the City of Norfolk.  Following the 
transfer of the case, that circuit court overruled the 
defendants’ demurrer, and the parties proceeded with 
discovery. 
 
Hartig and Landmark filed a motion for summary 
judgment, along with several exhibits, including a copy of 
the special grand jury’s report and certain discovery 
responses.  In particular, the circuit court had before it 
Jackson’s answer to an interrogatory propounded to him by 
Hartig and Landmark, asking Jackson to “[i]dentify and 
describe in detail and with particularity any evidence you 
contend establishes that Mr. Hartig published the alleged 
defamatory statements with constitutional actual malice.”  
Jackson responded: 
 
The editorial board failed to even review 
their own newspaper files concerning . . . my 
record, the trial and my exoneration, my 
continued service until the end of term (1994-
1998), and their very own endorsement of me in 
May 1998, publishing factually accurate 
information stating the direct opposite of 
content in the November 1, 2003 editorial.  Such 
reckless disregard for the truth or the 
Defendants’ knowledge of the falsity of the 
defamatory content in the November 1, 2003 
article constitutes actual malice.  Moreover Mr. 
Hartig told me in a phone conversation on 
November 4, 2003 that I had to pay for the 
deficit. 
 
Hartig and Landmark also included as an exhibit Hartig’s 
response to Jackson’s requests for admission, in which 
 
7
Hartig admitted that he “had read the substantive 
provisions of the [special] [g]rand [j]ury [r]eport before 
the May 3, 1998 editorial was published.” 
Additionally, in their memorandum in support of the 
motion for summary judgment, Hartig and Landmark admitted 
that Hartig did not review either the Virginian-Pilot’s 
files or its May 3, 1998 endorsement of Jackson for city 
council before writing the November 1, 2003 editorial.  The 
defendants represented that Hartig was the managing editor 
of the Virginian-Pilot’s “mainsheet” in 1998 and therefore, 
he neither wrote nor approved the newspaper’s editorial 
endorsing Jackson’s candidacy that year.  Though Hartig and 
Landmark acknowledged that Hartig knew Jackson had been 
acquitted of the malfeasance charge brought against him in 
1996, they maintained that such knowledge did not mean that 
Hartig knew that Jackson was not responsible for the budget 
deficit. 
In a letter opinion, the circuit court summarized the 
contents of the November 1, 2003 editorial, concluding that 
it contained “several statements of fact which are not in 
dispute, statements of opinion which suggest that in spite 
of the jury verdict, Jackson was responsible for the 
[S]chool [B]oard budget deficit, and one factually false 
statement that Jackson eventually resigned his position 
 
8
from the . . . School Board.”  The court concluded that the 
statement characterizing the budget deficit as a “disaster 
that took years to overcome” was an opinion, and thus, not 
subject to an action for defamation.  The court further 
concluded that, although the statement that Jackson 
resigned from the School Board after being exonerated at 
trial was “false, [it did] not disparage him.”  Finally, 
even though the circuit court believed that the November 1, 
2003 editorial could be read as insinuating that Jackson 
had committed a crime, the court concluded that Jackson’s 
acquittal on the charge of malfeasance was insufficient, by 
itself, to establish that the defendants had acted with 
actual malice.  Thus, the circuit court sustained the 
defendants’ motion for summary judgment. 
 
Jackson moved the circuit court to reconsider its 
ruling, submitting as exhibits deposition testimony by 
Jackson, Hartig, and Jackson’s opponent in the 2003 
election,3 as well as copies of Virginian-Pilot news stories 
                     
3 The record does not disclose any agreement between 
the parties allowing the use of depositions in the circuit 
court’s consideration of Hartig and Landmark’s motion for 
summary judgment.  Indeed, Jackson specifically noted an 
objection to such use of depositions on the circuit court’s 
final order dismissing his motion for judgment with 
prejudice.  In the absence of such an agreement between the 
parties, deposition testimony was not properly before the 
circuit court and could not be used in considering whether 
to sustain a motion for summary judgment.  Code § 8.01-420; 
 
9
covering Jackson’s trial in 1996.  Jackson also included 
notes compiled by Hartig and another member of the 
Virginian-Pilot editorial board during an interview with 
Jackson prior to the publication of the November 1, 2003 
editorial.  The notes purportedly indicated Jackson served 
a full, four-year term on the School Board. 
Hartig and Landmark filed a memorandum in opposition 
to Jackson’s motion to reconsider, attaching as an exhibit 
interrogatory responses wherein they detailed portions of 
the special grand jury report Hartig used in forming his 
opinion that Jackson, as a School Board member, bore some 
responsibility for the budget deficit.  The defendants 
further stated in the interrogatory answer that, while 
preparing the November 1, 2003 editorial, Hartig reviewed 
several articles published in the Virginia-Pilot concerning 
the special grand jury report, which, according to Hartig, 
quoted the special grand jury’s conclusions that 
(a) the School Board did not regard financial 
oversight as part of its responsibilities, (b) 
the School Board and the superintendent bore the 
ultimate legal responsibility for the deficit, 
(c) the overwhelming evidence was that School 
Board members, including [Jackson], committed 
malfeasance in office, and . . . (e) the School 
Board members, including [Jackson], should be 
indicted for malfeasance if they refused to 
resign. 
                                                             
Rule 3:20; Gay v. Norfolk & W. Ry. Co., 253 Va. 212, 214, 
483 S.E.2d 216, 218 (1997). 
 
10
 
The circuit court denied the motion to reconsider and 
dismissed Jackson’s motion for judgment with prejudice.  We 
awarded Jackson an appeal on two assignments of error.  
First, Jackson assigns error to the decision of the Circuit 
Court of the City of Norfolk to grant summary judgment for 
the defendants.  Second, he challenges the ruling of the 
Circuit Court of the City of Portsmouth granting the change 
of venue. 
ANALYSIS 
 
In recognition of the importance of safeguarding an 
individual’s basic entitlement to the uninterrupted 
enjoyment of his or her reputation, Virginia law allows a 
person who has been the subject of libel or slander to 
bring a cause of action for defamation.  Tronfeld v. 
Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 272 Va. 709, 713, 636 S.E.2d 447, 
449 (2006).  To prevail on a claim for libel such as the 
one asserted by Jackson, a plaintiff in Virginia must 
establish the publication of a false and defamatory 
statement of fact with the requisite intent.  Jordan v. 
Kollman, 269 Va. 569, 575, 612 S.E.2d 203, 206 (2005).  
Because the right to seek legal redress for another’s 
defamatory statements is constrained by the protections of 
free speech established in the First Amendment to the 
 
11
United States Constitution and Article I, Section 12 of the 
Constitution of Virginia, Yeagle v. Collegiate Times, 255 
Va. 293, 295, 497 S.E.2d 136, 137 (1998), the intent 
required to prove defamation depends, in part, on whether a 
plaintiff is a public or private figure.  Jordan, 269 Va. 
at 576, 612 S.E.2d at 207. 
In that regard, the Supreme Court of the United 
States, in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 
(1964), held that the federal constitution’s guarantees of 
the rights of the public and the press to engage in 
uninhibited debate concerning public issues required the 
formulation of a rule prohibiting a public official from 
recovering damages for defamatory falsehoods related to his 
official conduct except upon proof that the defamatory 
statement was made “with ‘actual malice’ – that is, with 
knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of 
whether it was false or not.”  Id. at 279–80.  The Supreme 
Court has since required proof of actual malice in cases 
where a political candidate asserts a claim for damages 
allegedly caused by defamatory statements touching on his 
fitness for office.  Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy, 401 U.S. 
265, 271–72 (1971).  As Jackson argues on brief, the 
obvious import of the November 1, 2003 editorial was to 
persuade voters that he had been “fiscally irresponsible 
 
12
while serving on the School Board,” and that they, 
therefore, should not elect him to another position of 
stewardship over public funds.  Therefore, since the 
alleged defamatory statements clearly spoke to Jackson’s 
qualifications for elective office, this case falls 
squarely within the New York Times framework.  See Ocala 
Star-Banner Co. v. Damron, 401 U.S. 295, 300–01 (1971). 
 
In order to establish actual malice, a plaintiff “must 
demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the 
defendant realized that his statement was false or that he 
subjectively entertained serious doubt as to the truth of 
his statement.”  Jordan, 269 Va. at 577, 612 S.E.2d at 207 
(citing Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of the United States, 
Inc., 466 U.S. 485, 511 n.30 (1984)).  In the context of 
this case, Jackson’s defamation claim can survive summary 
judgment only if the pleadings, orders, admissions, and 
answers to interrogatories reveal a genuine dispute of 
material facts that would allow a reasonable fact finder to 
conclude Hartig and Landmark published the November 1, 2003 
editorial either knowing that the statements contained 
therein were false or entertaining serious doubt that they 
were true.  Rules 3:20, 4:8(e); Klaiber v. Freemason 
Assocs., Inc., 266 Va. 478, 484, 587 S.E.2d 555, 558 
(2003).  In reviewing the circuit court’s decision to 
 
13
sustain the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, we 
review those specific portions of the record in the light 
most favorable to the nonmoving party, Jackson.  Id. at 
481–82, 587 S.E.2d at 556.  We also accept “as true ‘those 
inferences from the facts that are most favorable to the 
nonmoving party, unless the inferences are forced, 
strained, or contrary to reason.’ ”  Id. at 484, 587 S.E.2d 
at 558 (quoting Dudas v. Glenwood Golf Club, Inc., 261 Va. 
133, 136, 540 S.E.2d 129, 130–31 (2001)). 
As evidence of actual malice, Jackson now points to 
the facts in the record detailing the Virginian-Pilot’s 
coverage of the events surrounding the School Board’s 
budget deficit, Jackson’s refusal to resign, his 
indictment, and his ultimate acquittal on the malfeasance 
charge.  According to Jackson, these news stories, as well 
as Hartig’s prior position as managing editor of the 
newspaper’s mainsheet and the Virginian-Pilot’s May 3, 1998 
endorsement of his candidacy for city council, demonstrate 
that Hartig knew Jackson had not committed malfeasance in 
office and that he had not resigned.  Jackson also relies 
on the interview notes generated by Hartig and another 
editorial board member that purportedly showed Jackson 
served a full, four-year term on the School Board.  
Additionally, Jackson directs our attention to Hartig’s 
 
14
statement in a telephone conversation with Jackson on 
November 4, 2003 that Jackson “had to pay for the deficit.” 
Viewing these facts in the light most favorable to 
Jackson, we conclude that they are insufficient as a matter 
of law to establish clear and convincing evidence that 
Hartig and Landmark published the statements in the 
November 1, 2003 editorial with actual malice.  The mere 
presence of news stories in a newspaper’s files containing 
information that contradicts an allegedly defamatory 
statement by the news organization is insufficient to 
establish actual malice.  New York Times, 376 U.S. at 287.  
Furthermore, a media defendant in a defamation claim 
subject to the New York Times standard cannot be said to 
have acted with actual malice on account of its failure to 
investigate the accuracy of an allegedly defamatory 
statement before publishing it unless the defendant first 
“had a high degree of awareness of [its] probable falsity.”  
Shenandoah Publ’g House, Inc. v. Gunter, 245 Va. 320, 324, 
427 S.E.2d 370, 372 (1993); see also St. Amant v. Thompson, 
390 U.S. 727, 731 (1968) (“[R]eckless conduct is not 
measured by whether a reasonably prudent man would have 
published, or would have investigated before publishing.  
There must be sufficient evidence to permit the conclusion 
that the defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as to 
 
15
the truth of his publication.”).  Thus, in the context of 
the actual malice inquiry, a duty to investigate the 
accuracy of one’s statements does not arise until the 
publisher of those statements has a high degree of 
subjective awareness of their probable falsity.  See Harte-
Hanks Commc’ns, Inc. v. Connaughton, 491 U.S. 657, 688 
(1989) (citing Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64, 74 
(1964)). 
Acknowledging that a failure to investigate does not 
alone support a finding of actual malice, Jackson contends, 
nevertheless, that Hartig purposefully avoided the truth 
and thereby published the November 1, 2003 editorial with 
actual malice.  See id. at 692 (“Although failure to 
investigate will not alone support a finding of actual 
malice, . . . the purposeful avoidance of the truth is in a 
different category.”).  We disagree.  In particular, 
neither the incorrect statement that Jackson resigned from 
the School Board nor his acquittal establish that Hartig 
entertained any serious doubt about the truth of his 
statements asserting that Jackson had a “blot on his 
record” because he bore some degree of responsibility for 
the School Board’s disastrous budget deficit even though he 
was acquitted of the criminal charge of malfeasance.  That 
the Commonwealth failed to obtain a conviction against 
 
16
Jackson for malfeasance in office does not, of its own 
force, impeach the reliability of the special grand jury 
report’s statement that Jackson admitted under oath that he 
had “some level of responsibility for spending millions of 
dollars of public money they did not have.”  Furthermore, 
the evidence in the record, including the interview notes, 
does not establish that Hartig published the statement that 
Jackson resigned his seat on the School Board knowing the 
statement was false.  “[T]o insure the ascertainment and 
publication of the truth about public affairs, it is 
essential that the First Amendment protect some erroneous 
publications as well as true ones.”  St. Amant, 390 U.S. at 
732. 
Additionally, Hartig stated in interrogatory answers 
that, before publishing the November 1, 2003 editorial, he 
had reviewed articles published by the Virginian-Pilot that 
quoted, among other things, the special grand jury’s 
conclusions that “the School Board did not regard financial 
oversight as part of its responsibilities” and that “the 
School Board and the superintendent bore the ultimate legal 
responsibility for the deficit.”  As the circuit court 
correctly noted, without a fact in the record that would 
show Hartig had any reason to question the accuracy of the 
special grand jury’s recitation of facts, such as evidence 
 
17
showing he knew that witnesses before the special grand 
jury had perjured themselves, there is no basis for 
concluding that Hartig and Landmark had any serious doubt 
about the truth of their assertion that Jackson, despite 
his acquittal on the malfeasance charge, had some level of 
responsibility for the School Board’s budget deficit.  See 
St. Amant, 390 U.S. at 731 (evidence must show that the 
defendant in fact had serious doubts about the truth of his 
publication). 
 
Equally unavailing is Jackson’s reference to Hartig’s 
alleged comment to him, saying Jackson “had to pay for the 
deficit.”  This fact does not speak to Hartig’s state of 
mind at the time he published the editorial three days 
earlier.  Moreover, this statement, at most, suggests that 
Hartig harbored some kind of ill will toward Jackson.  
While “it cannot be said that evidence concerning motive or 
care never bears any relation to the actual malice 
inquiry,” proof of a media defendant’s ill will toward a 
public figure plaintiff is, without more, insufficient to 
establish knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for 
the truth.  Harte-Hanks, 491 U.S. at 666, 668. 
 
When, as in this case, allegedly defamatory statements 
discuss a candidate’s fitness for elective office, 
 
18
[t]he importance to the state and to society of 
such discussions is so vast, and the advantages 
derived are so great, that they more than 
counterbalance the inconvenience of private 
persons whose conduct may be involved, and 
occasional injury to the reputations of 
individuals must yield to the public welfare, 
although at times such injury may be great. 
 
Coleman v. MacLennan, 98 P. 281, 286 (Kan. 1908).  “[T]here 
can be no doubt that discussion of public issues and debate 
on the qualifications of candidates for public office are 
integral to the operation of our system of government and 
are entitled to the broadest protection the First Amendment 
can afford.”  Mahan v. National Conservative Political 
Action Comm., 227 Va. 330, 336, 315 S.E.2d 829, 833 (1984). 
CONCLUSION 
We conclude that the circuit court properly entered 
summary judgment for Hartig and Landmark.  Summary judgment 
is appropriate when “no material facts are genuinely in 
dispute.”  Klaiber, 266 Va. at 484, 587 S.E.2d at 558; see 
also Carwile v. Richmond Newspapers, Inc., 196 Va. 1, 5, 82 
S.E.2d 588, 590 (1954) (summary judgment is appropriate 
“when it clearly appears that one of the parties is 
entitled to judgment within the framework of the case”).  
Our review of the record on the motion for summary judgment 
does not disclose any genuinely disputed material fact that 
would permit a reasonable fact finder to conclude that the 
 
19
defendants published, either with actual knowledge of 
falsity or subjective serious doubts as to truth, the 
statements in Hartig’s November 1, 2003 editorial asserting 
that Jackson, as a former School Board member, bore some 
degree of responsibility for the School Board’s budget 
deficit despite his acquittal on the malfeasance charge.  
The absence of such a fact is fatal to Jackson’s attempt to 
meet his constitutional burden of establishing that Hartig 
and Landmark published the allegedly defamatory statements 
with actual malice.  Accordingly, we will affirm the 
circuit court’s judgment granting summary judgment in favor 
of Hartig and Landmark and dismissing Jackson’s motion for 
judgment with prejudice.4 
Affirmed. 
 
SENIOR JUSTICE RUSSELL, with whom JUSTICE LEMONS joins, 
dissenting. 
 
The majority opinion expresses well the law of libel 
that applies to this case.  I part company only with the 
majority’s conclusion that the case was a proper subject 
for summary judgment.  After setting forth the applicable 
law of libel, the majority opinion engages in a detailed 
                     
4 In light of our decision, it is not necessary to 
address Jackson’s assignment of error challenging the 
circuit court’s decision to transfer venue.  Venue is 
 
20
analysis of the facts, drawing inferences from them and 
reaching conclusions based upon them.  In my view, the 
majority thereby invades the province of a jury, as the 
trial court had done. 
As the majority opinion states, Jackson, as a 
candidate for public office, had the burden of proving by 
clear and convincing evidence that the defendant published 
a defamatory falsehood touching upon his fitness for office 
that was motivated by “New York Times malice.”  That term 
is correctly defined as a statement of fact made “with 
knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of 
whether it was false or not.”  There was an abundance of 
evidence in the record from which a jury could have 
concluded that the defendants' publication met that 
standard.  First, the defendants’ statement that Jackson 
had resigned his office (impliedly in disgrace) was 
demonstrably false.  Second, the defendants knew of its 
falsity when the statement was made. The newspaper had 
actually published an editorial five years earlier 
commending Jackson as a “man of integrity” for his refusal 
to allow himself to be “bullied off the School Board by the 
commonwealth’s attorney.”  Jackson was prepared to offer in 
                                                             
concerned with the appropriate “place of trial,” Code 
§ 8.01-258, not the viability of a cause of action. 
 
21
evidence handwritten notes taken by Hartig and another 
member of the paper’s editorial board during an interview 
just prior to the defamatory publication showing that they 
knew that Jackson had served his full four-year term on the 
school board.  From this evidence alone, a jury could have 
found that the defendants, when making the false 
statements, had a “high degree of subjective awareness of 
their probable falsity.”  Nothing more is required to meet 
the test of “New York Times malice.”   
The issue of the defendants’ motivation and intent is 
one of fact for resolution by the jury, not one of law for 
determination by the court.   
 
It is a court’s duty to decide as a matter 
of law whether a communication is privileged.  
But, the question whether a defendant was 
actuated by malice, and has abused the occasion 
and exceeded the privilege, is a question of fact 
for a jury. 
 
Fuste v. Riverside Healthcare Ass'n, 265 Va. 127, 135, 575 
S.E.2d 858, 863 (2003) (quoting Alexandria Gazette Corp. v. 
West, 198 Va. 154, 160, 93 S.E.2d 274, 279-80 (1956) 
(internal quotation marks omitted)).  
 
The general rule, which has been repeatedly 
stated by this court, is that . . . the question 
of whether or not the defendant was actuated by 
malice and . . . exceeded his privilege [is a 
question] of fact for the jury. 
 
Alexandria Gazette, 198 Va. at 160, 93 S.E.2d at 279. 
 
22
 
Because the issue of malice depends entirely upon a 
determination of the defendant’s motive and intent at the 
time of making an allegedly defamatory statement, summary 
judgment is singularly inappropriate. 
 
[S]ummary judgment is seldom appropriate in 
cases wherein particular states of mind are 
decisive as elements of a claim or defense.  This 
reflects a general perception that whether as a 
matter of fact any particular state of mind 
exists can seldom be considered to be beyond 
reasonable dispute because this depends entirely 
upon the conflicting inferences to be drawn from 
evidence so likely to be circumstantial or, if 
direct, self-serving. 
 
Charbonnages de France v. Smith, 597 F.2d 406, 414 (4th 
Cir. 1979). 
 
Here, the defendants sought to justify their 
defamatory statements in 2003 by reliance on a report filed 
by a special grand jury in 1996.  The trial court found as 
a fact that this reliance was justified, notwithstanding 
all the events of which the defendants were aware that 
occurred during the next seven years, and the majority 
opinion agrees.  The majority opinion goes on to weigh the 
evidence upon which Jackson relied to establish the 
defendants’ knowledge of the falsity of their statements 
and their motivation in making them.  A striking 
illustration of this appears where the majority opinion, 
after reviewing Jackson’s evidence in this regard, 
 
23
concludes:  “Viewing these facts in the light most 
favorable to Jackson, we conclude that they are 
insufficient as a matter of law to establish clear and 
convincing evidence that Hartig and Landmark published the 
statements . . . with actual malice.”  It was entirely 
within the province of a properly instructed jury, not of 
the court, to weigh that evidence and determine what had 
been proved by clear and convincing evidence.  The majority 
opinion also flatly states:  “Furthermore, the evidence in 
the record does not establish that Hartig knew, at the time 
he published the incorrect statement, . . . that the 
statement was untrue.”  That weighing of the facts ignores 
Hartig’s notes taken at his interview with Jackson just 
before the statements were published, which showed the 
exact opposite.  A jury, had it been permitted to weigh the 
evidence, might have reached a very different conclusion. 
 
Summary judgment is a drastic remedy, available only 
where there is no material fact genuinely in dispute.  It 
has the effect of short-circuiting the trial and cutting 
off the right of the parties to a trial by jury.  Unknown 
at common law, it applies only to cases in which no trial 
is necessary because no evidence could affect the result.  
Shevel’s, Inc. v. Southeastern Assocs., Inc., 228 Va. 175, 
 
24
181, 320 S.E.2d 339, 342-43 (1984).  In my view, this case 
falls far outside that category. 
The constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press 
and freedom of speech are indeed fundamental to the ordered 
liberty of our people, but the constitutional right to 
trial by jury is no less so.  Article I, Section 11 of the 
Constitution of Virginia provides, in pertinent part:  
“That in controversies respecting property, and in suits 
between man and man, trial by jury is preferable to any 
other, and ought to be held sacred.”  That provision, 
attributed to George Mason, has as much vitality in 
Virginia today as it did in 1776, when it became a part of 
our original constitution.  See Bethel Investment Co. v. 
City of Hampton, 272 Va. 765, 769 n.2, 636 S.E.2d 466, 469 
n.2 (2006). 
In this case, the motive and intent of the defendants 
in publishing the allegedly defamatory editorial is an 
issue essential to a finding of the presence or absence of 
“New York Times malice.” That issue turns on material 
facts, which in this case are genuinely in dispute.  There 
was evidence in the record from which reasonable minds 
could draw differing conclusions as to those disputed 
facts.  Jackson had a constitutional right to submit that 
dispute to a jury.   
 
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Because I think the majority opinion erroneously 
deprives Jackson of that right, I respectfully dissent.