Source: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology_v._Behar/Opinion_of_the_Court
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 08:55:59+00:00

Document:
Church of Scientology v. Behar by John M. Walker, Jr.
673602Church of Scientology v. Behar — Opinion of the CourtJohn M. Walker, Jr.
Plaintiff-appellant Church of Scientology International ("CSI") appeals from judgments of the district court for the Southern District of New York (Peter K. Leisure, District Judge ) dismissing appellant's libel complaint. Because we find that the challenged statements were not published with actual malice or were subsidiary in meaning to statements made without actual malice, we affirm the judgments of the district court.
1. "[T]he church ... survives by intimidating members and critics in a Mafia-like manner."
2. " 'Scientology is quite likely the most ruthless, the most classically terroristic ... cult the country has ever seen.' "
3. "Those who criticize the church--journalists, doctors, lawyers and even judges--often find themselves ... framed for fictional crimes, beaten up or threatened with death."
"Scientology denies any tie to the Fishman scam, a claim strongly disputed by both Fishman and his longtime psychiatrist, Uwe Geertz, a prominent Florida hypnotist. Both men claim that when arrested, Fishman was ordered by the church to kill Geertz and then do an 'EOC,' or end of cycle, which is church jargon for suicide."
7. " 'What these guys do is take over companies, hype the stock, sell their shares, and then there's nothing left....' " "... 'They stole this man's property.' "
8. "THE LOTTICKS LOST THEIR SON, Noah, who jumped from a Manhattan hotel clutching $171, virtually the only money he had not yet turned over to Scientology. His parents blame the *172 church and would like to sue but are frightened by the organization's reputation for ruthlessness."
9. "His death inspired his father Edward, a physician, to start his own investigation of the church. 'We thought Scientology was something like Dale Carnegie,' Lottick says. 'I now believe it's a school for psychopaths. Their so-called therapies are manipulations. They take the best and brightest people and destroy them.' "
10. "It was too late. 'From Noah's friends at Dianetics' read the card that accompanied a bouquet of flowers at Lottick's funeral. Yet no Scientology staff members bothered to show up."
11. "The next month the Rowes flew to Glendale, Calif., where they shuttled daily from a local hotel to a Dianetics center. 'We thought they were brilliant people because they seemed to know so much about us,' recalls Dee. 'Then we realized our hotel room must have been bugged.' After bolting from the center, $23,000 poorer, the Rowes say, they were chased repeatedly by Scientologists on foot and in cars."
12. "In a court filing, one of the cult's many entities--the Church of Spiritual Technology--listed $503 million in income just for 1987."
In June of 1992, the defendants moved to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that the statements, none of which mentioned CSI by name, were not of and concerning CSI. On November 23, 1992, the district court granted the motion to dismiss in part, finding that certain of the statements complained of could not be read as referring to CSI. Church of Scientology Int'l v. Time Warner, Inc., 806 F.Supp. 1157 (S.D.N.Y.1992) ("Time I"). Specifically, the court found that parts of statement 4 and all of statements 6, 7, 11, and 12 could not reasonably be considered to be of and concerning CSI. See id. at 1162- 64. Defendants then answered the complaint, and Behar asserted counterclaims against CSI for harassment and violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681. The parties agreed to focus discovery on the issue of actual malice and to defer discovery on the issue of truth and falsity.
After two and a half years of discovery, the district court granted summary judgment to defendants as to all of the remaining statements, except for statement 5, on the grounds of lack of actual malice. Church of Scientology Int'l v. Time Warner, Inc., 903 F.Supp. 637, 642-44 (S.D.N.Y.1995) ("Time II"). On reconsideration, the district court granted summary judgment to defendants on statement 5, that the Vancouver Stock Exchange (the "VSE") was one source of funds for the church (the "VSE statement"), based on the subsidiary meaning doctrine, and dismissed the complaint. Church of Scientology Int'l v. Time Warner, Inc., 932 F.Supp. 589, 595 (S.D.N.Y.1996) ( "Time III"). CSI then moved for an order modifying the district court's opinion in Time III, arguing that it was now stating a claim for nominal damages, for which it did not need to prove actual malice. The district court declined to address the merits of the claim because it found CSI's motion to be a procedurally defective motion for reargument. Church of Scientology Int'l v. Time Warner, Inc., No. 92 Civ. 3024, 1997 WL 538912, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 27, 1997) ("Time IV").
On September 9, 1997, CSI moved for leave to amend the complaint to assert a claim for nominal damages premised on a finding that the disputed statements were demonstrably false. The district court denied the motion, holding that allowing CSI to amend its complaint five years after it brought the action, and after summary judgment had been granted against it, would be unduly prejudicial to the defendants. *173 Church of Scientology Int'l v. Time Warner, Inc., 1998 WL 575194, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 9, 1998) ("Time V"). The district court also held that amendment would be futile, since a public figure claiming even nominal damages is still required to demonstrate actual malice under New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 297-98, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964). See Time V, 1998 WL 575194, at *4-5. Although Behar's counterclaims were still pending, the parties agreed that these claims would be dismissed without prejudice, on the understanding that they could be refiled should the complaint be reinstated. CSI moved for the district court to enter a final judgment dismissing its complaint. The court granted the motion, Church of Scientology Int'l v. Time Warner, Inc., No. 92 Civ. 3024, 1999 WL 126450, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 9, 1999), and this appeal followed.
 Libel, a method of defamation expressed in writing or print, is a common law cause of action and applies separate standards to plaintiffs who are private individuals and those who are public figures. See Celle v. Filipino Reporter Enters., Inc., 209 F.3d 163, 176 (2d Cir.2000). CSI concedes that it is a public figure; therefore to prevail it must show that the statements it complains of were (1) of and concerning CSI, (2) likely to be understood as defamatory by the ordinary person, (3) false, and (4) published with actual malice, that is, either knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard of the truth. See id. In contrast, a private plaintiff need only prove that false and defamatory statements of and concerning the plaintiff were made with gross negligence. See Karaduman v. Newsday, Inc., 51 N.Y.2d 531, 539, 435 N.Y.S.2d 556, 416 N.E.2d 557 (1980).
 Under New York Times, a public figure plaintiff must prove that an allegedly libelous statement was made with actual *174 malice, that is, made "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." New York Times, 376 U.S. at 280, 84 S.Ct. 710. This showing must be made by clear and convincing evidence. See Celle, 209 F.3d at 183. Despite its name, the actual malice standard does not measure malice in the sense of ill will or animosity, but instead the speaker's subjective doubts about the truth of the publication. See Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U.S. 496, 510, 111 S.Ct. 2419, 115 L.Ed.2d 447 (1991) If it cannot be shown that the defendant knew that the statements were false, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the defendant made the statements with reckless disregard of whether they were true or false. The reckless conduct needed to show actual malice "is not measured by whether a reasonably prudent man would have published, or would have investigated before publishing," St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U.S. 727, 731, 88 S.Ct. 1323, 20 L.Ed.2d 262 (1968), but by whether there is sufficient evidence "to permit the conclusion that the defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of his publication," id.
The St. Amant Court found the following factors to be relevant to a showing that the defendant harbored actual malice: (1) whether a story is fabricated or is based wholly on an unverified, anonymous source, (2) whether the defendant's allegations are so inherently improbable that only a reckless person would have put them in circulation, or (3) whether there are obvious reasons to doubt the veracity of the informant or the accuracy of his reports. See id. at 732, 88 S.Ct. 1323.
 CSI argues that Behar had a negative view of Scientology, and that his bias pervaded his investigation and caused him to publish false and defamatory statements about CSI. The district court found that the evidence could not support such a claim. The district court found that Behar's alleged bias would be relevant to show a purposeful avoidance of the truth if it were coupled with evidence of an extreme departure from standard investigative techniques. The district court concluded, however, that "plaintiff has failed to demonstrate the correlative circumstance of inadequate investigation to make its evidence of bias probative of actual malice, rather than probative of lack thereof," Time II, 903 F.Supp. at 641, noting also that the "speaker's belief in his statements, even his exaggerations, enhances, rather than diminishes, the likelihood that they are protected," id. We believe that the district court properly applied the actual malice standard, and turn to the statements themselves.
 The Fishman Statements. The part of the Fishman statement that pertained to Fishman's stock scam (paragraph 45, statement 4) was not published with actual malice. Behar interviewed Steven Fishman, Robert Dondero, the Assistant *175 United States Attorney that prosecuted Fishman for stock fraud, and Marc Nurik, the attorney that represented Fishman. As the district court observed, Behar relied on these interviews. See id. at 644. He had no reason to have serious doubts about the truth of the information given him by the prosecuting attorney, the defense attorney, and the defendant in the case.
 Nor were the murder-suicide allegations published with actual malice. Behar interviewed Fishman's psychiatrist, Uwe Geertz, and Vicki Aznaran, a former high-ranking Scientologist. CSI argues that Behar had evidence that Fishman's claims that the church had ordered him to kill Dr. Geertz and commit suicide were false since Fishman had previously tried to frame the church with similar charges by staging a phony death threat 18 months earlier. While this does raise questions about whether Fishman's account was reliable, the evidence in the record shows that Behar had considerable corroboration of Fishman's account, including the testimony of Dr. Geertz that he had reported the death threat referred to in the Article to the FBI, and Dr. Geertz's testimony in Fishman's criminal trial. In addition, Behar had reason to discount the relevance of the earlier threat based on his interview with Nurik, who told him that he believed Fishman had been manipulated into staging the fake death threat by Scientologists; Dr. Geertz's appraisal of the two threats; and Behar's own awareness of similarly convoluted plots to frame others. In any event, the Article does not present Fishman's claim as undisputed fact, but rather makes clear that Scientology denies the truth of Fishman and Dr. Geertz's charges. In view of the extensive research Behar conducted, and the fact that the death threat was accurately reported as an allegation, we agree with the district court that no reasonable jury could find that Behar had published the statements about the stock scam or the murder-suicide allegation with purposeful avoidance of the truth.
 The VSE Statements: Subsidiary Meaning. The district court ultimately dismissed the VSE Statement based on the subsidiary meaning doctrine established by this court in Herbert v. Lando, 781 F.2d 298 (2d Cir.1986). See Time III, 932 F.Supp. at 595. In Herbert, we held that when a "published view" of a plaintiff is not actionable as libel, other statements made in the same publication are not "actionable if they merely imply the same view, and are simply an outgrowth of and subsidiary to those claims upon which it has been held that there can be no recovery." Id. at 312. Relying on the Supreme Court's holding in Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U.S. 496, 111 S.Ct. 2419, 115 L.Ed.2d 447 (1991), that the related "incremental harm" doctrine is not a creature of federal constitutional law, CSI argues that (1) the subsidiary meaning doctrine can be applied here only if it *176 is part of the relevant body of state law, and (2) neither California nor New York law, one of which presumably applies to this case, recognizes this doctrine. Because the subsidiary meaning doctrine is merely a gloss on constitutional actual malice, we disagree.
 The incremental harm doctrine at issue in Masson reasons that when unchallenged or non-actionable parts of a publication are damaging, an additional statement, even if maliciously false, might be non-actionable because it causes no appreciable additional harm. See Herbert, 781 F.2d at 310; Simmons Ford, Inc. v. Consumers Union, 516 F.Supp. 742, 750 (S.D.N.Y.1981) In Masson, the Supreme Court reject[ed] any suggestion that the incremental harm doctrine is compelled as a matter of First Amendment protection for speech ... [because t]he question of incremental harm does not bear upon whether a defendant has published a statement with knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. Masson, 501 U.S. at 523, 111 S.Ct. 2419.
FN2. We also note that both the incremental harm and subsidiary meaning doctrines are distinct from the "libel-proof-plaintiff" doctrine. See, e.g., Cardillo v. Doubleday & Co., 518 F.2d 638, 639 (2d Cir.1975) Because that doctrine is not before us, we take no position on its continued vitality after Masson.
FN3. Among those other claims was CSI's claim for nominal damages. CSI's status as a public figure means that it was required to demonstrate actual malice, whatever remedy it sought.

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