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Parties Involved:
Adesco, Inc.
Appellant
Heritage Life Insurance Company
Appellee
David Yoshioka
Not Party

Document Text:

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

ADESCO, INC. an Oklahoma corporation, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

HERITAGE LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, an 

Arizona corporation, 

Defendant-Appellee, 

and 

DAVID YOSHIOKA, an individual, 

Defendant. 

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ORDER AND JUDGMENT * 

NOV 8 1990 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 89-5114 

(D.C. No. 87-C-827-C) 

( N. D • Okla • ) 

Before McKAY, McWILLIAMS, and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th .Cir. R. 34.1.9. 

submitted without oral argument. 

The case is therefore ordered 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppal. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 89-5114 Document: 010110047879 Date Filed: 11/08/1990 Page: 1 
Plaintiff appeals from a district court order granting 

summary judgment for defendant Heritage Life Insurance Co. on 

plaintiff's claims of slander per se, tortious interference with 

existing and prospective economic advantage and business 

relations, and unfair competition. Plaintiff brought this action 

to redress economic injury allegedly caused by false, disparaging 

rumors of its financial condition circulated by defendant. 

The district court rejected plaintiff's claim for slander per 

se because, in its judgment, the operative communications, couched 

in the form of questions and/or labelled as rumor or hearsay, were 

not sufficiently definitive in their negative imputations to 

plaintiff. See Krebsbach v. Henley, 725 P.2d 852, 856 (Okla. 

1986); Gentry v. Wagoner County Publishing Co., 351 P.2d 718, 720 

(Okla. 1960). Since this is a legal question, Robert K. Bell 

Enterprises. Inc. v. Tulsa County Fairgrounds Trust Authority, 695 

P.2d 513, 516 (Okla. 1985), our review is de novo. In re 

Ruti-Sweetwater, Inc., 836 F.2d 1263, 1266 (10th Cir. 1988). 

The critical issue 

communication "engenders 

in 

in 

this 

the 

regard 

mind of 

is whether the cited 

[its recipient] a 

conclusion, impression, or opinion of the plaintiff that is 

defamatory." Hargrove v. Oklahoma Press Publishing Co., 265 P. 

635, 636 (Okla. 1928). Thus, the defamatory character of a 

statement must be measured by its natural and probable effects on 

its intended audience. See Winters v. Morgan, 576 P.2d 1152, 1154 

(Okla. 1978); Fawcett Publications. Inc. v. Morris, 377 P.2d 42, 

48 (Okla. 1962), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 513 (1964). 

2 

Appellate Case: 89-5114 Document: 010110047879 Date Filed: 11/08/1990 Page: 2 
The _natural and probable effect on the insurance industry 

recipients of defendant's numerous inquiries about, and 

repetitions of, rumors regarding plaintiff's financial crisis 

would surely be "a conclusion, impression, or opinion" about 

plaintiff that "[t]ends directly to injure [plaintiff] in respect 

to [its] . . . business." Okla. Stat. tit. 12, 

S 1442(3)(specifying conunercially injurious statements as one of 

several categories of conununications that are defamatory per se); 

see Standifer v. Val Gene Management Servs .• Inc., 527 P.2d 28, 

30-31 (Okla. App. 1974)(applying section 1442(3)). And the 

consequent defamatory character of defendant's conununications is 

not negated by their interrogatory form,~ Spencer v. Minnick, 

139 P. 130, 132 (Okla. 1913); see also Dusabek v. Martz, 249 P. 

145, 146-47 (Okla. 1926), or by their qualification as hearsay or 

rumors, ~ Smith v. Gillis, 151 P. 869, 870-71 (Okla. 1915); cf. 

Luper v. Black Dispatch Publishing Co., 675 P.2d 1028, 1034-35 

(Okla. App. 1983). Accordingly, we hold that plaintiff should be 

permitted to pursue its claim for slander per se. 

The district court granted defendant sununary judgment on the 

remaining claims because of the legal insufficiency of plaintiff's 

proof on the issue of proximate cause. Our de nova review of this 

ruling, ~ Abercrombie v. City of Catoosa, 896 F.2d 1228, 1230 

(10th Cir. 1990), is guided by the substantive evidentiary 

standards that would govern in a trial on the merits,~ Anderson 

v. Liberty Lobby. Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249-52 (1986). Thus, we 

must determine whether plaintiff has adduced sufficient evidence 

3 

Appellate Case: 89-5114 Document: 010110047879 Date Filed: 11/08/1990 Page: 3 
to permit a reasonable jury to find it more probable that 

plaintiff's alleged economic injury resulted from defendant's 

conduct than from any other cause. See McConnell v. Oklahoma Gas 

& Elec. Co., 563 P.2d 632, 634 (Okla. 1977); Nye v. Cox, 440 P.2d 

683, 688 (Okla. 1968). 

We agree with the district court that plaintiff's essentially 

1 . 1· 1 exc usive re iance on limited statistical evidence consistent 

with but not, by itself, sufficiently indicative of proximate 

cause is fatal to its claims for economic interference and unfair 

competition. See generally Beatty v. Dixon, 408 P.2d 339, 344 

(Okla. 1965)(quoting Lowden v. Friddle, 117 P.2d 533, 536 (Okla. 

1941). Such evidence of lost business, unaccompanied by any 

corroborative evidence pointing to defendant's conduct as the 

operative cause, is not enough to entitle plaintiff to a trial. 

See Crystal Gas Co., 529 P.2d at 990; see also Continental 

Casualty Co. v. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., 860 F.2d 970, 973-74 

(10th Cir. 1988)(statistical evidence of substantial post-tort 

increase in policy cancellations held sufficient to establish 

proximate cause of plaintiff's economic injury where "other 

testimony, including that of the independent insurance agents who 

dealt directly with the contractors, established that the majority 

of cancellations related to [defendant's] actions"), cert. 

denied, 109 S. Ct. 1530 (1989). ~ Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. v. 

1 Plaintiff's attempt to buttress its statistical evidence of 

lost business with the opinion of its president attributing such 

loss to the rumors spread by defendant is unavailing. See Crystal 

Gas Co. v. Oklahoma Natural Gas Co., 529 P.2d 987, 989-90 (Okla. 

1974)(quoting Erlich v. Etner, 36 Cal. Rptr. 256, 260 (1964). 

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Appellate Case: 89-5114 Document: 010110047879 Date Filed: 11/08/1990 Page: 4 
Pickett, 258 P.2d 186, 187-88 (Okla. 1953)(circumstantial evidence 

regarding timing of injury held sufficient on causation where 

corroborated by other, more tangible evidence of connection 

between wrongful conduct and injury). 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Oklahoma granting summary judgment in favor 

of defendant is AFFIRMED with respect to plaintiff's claims for 

tortious economic interference and unfair competition and REVERSED 

as it relates to plaintiff's claim for slander per se. The case 

is REMANDED for further proceedings. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

PER CURIAM 

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Appellate Case: 89-5114 Document: 010110047879 Date Filed: 11/08/1990 Page: 5