Opinion ID: 157914
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: First Amendment Protection of Expressions of Opinion

Text: 13 The law of defamation and the First Amendment serve competing social values. The former protects an individual's interest in his or her good name, providing a cause of action for damage to reputation caused by false statements. See Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 11-14, 110 S.Ct. 2695, 111 L.Ed.2d 1 (1990) (summarizing the history of defamation law). The latter protects freedom of expression and was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about political and social changes desired by the people. New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S., 254, 269, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964). 14 Beginning with Justice Brennan's landmark opinion in Sullivan, the Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression limits the scope of state defamation laws. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 14, 110 S.Ct. 2695. Thus, the First Amendment prohibits public officials and public figures from recovering damages for false and defamatory statements unless they demonstrate that the statement was made with actual malice. See id. (discussing Sullivan and Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 87 S.Ct. 1975, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967)). Additionally, in defamation actions against media defendants, the First Amendment requires that a plaintiff bear the burden of proving that the statement in question was false and that the defendant had the requisite state of mind. See id. (discussing Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767, 777, 106 S.Ct. 1558, 89 L.Ed.2d 783 (1986)). 15 In Milkovich, the case applied by the district court in dismissing the School District's defamation claim, the Supreme Court addressed another important limitation on the scope of defamation laws. [A]t least in situations ... where a media defendant is involved, the Court concluded, a statement on matters of public concern must be provable as false before there can be liability under state defamation law. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 19-20, 110 S.Ct. 2695. Thus, a statement of opinion relating to matters of public concern which does not contain a provably false factual connotation will receive full constitutional protection. Id. at 20, 110 S.Ct. 2695. 16 Importantly, in reaching this conclusion, the Court rejected the argument that the First Amendment creates a wholesale defamation exemption for anything that might be labeled 'opinion.'  Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 18, 110 S.Ct. 2695. It reasoned that expressions of opinion may often imply an assertion of objective fact: 17 If a speaker says, In my opinion, John Jones is a liar, he implies a knowledge of facts which lead to the conclusion that Jones told an untruth. Even if he states the facts upon which he bases his opinion, if those facts are either incorrect or incomplete, or if his assessment of them is erroneous, the statement may still imply a false assertion of fact. Simply couching such statements in terms of opinion does not dispel these implications; and the statement, In my opinion Jones is a liar, can cause as such damage to reputation as the statement, Jones is a liar. 18 Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 18-19, 110 S.Ct. 2695. 19 The Court then considered the allegedly defamatory statement in the case before ita newspaper article declaring that anyone who had attended a wrestling meet knows in his heart that a coach had lied in testifying about the meet at a subsequent hearing. Id. at 5, 110 S.Ct. 2695. It addressed two related questions: (1) whether a reasonable factfinder could conclude that the article implied an assertion that the plaintiff had committed perjury; and (2) whether the connotation that the plaintiff committed perjury was sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proved true or false. Id. at 21, 110 S.Ct. 2695. 20 The Court answered both questions affirmatively. First, it concluded that the article did not employ the sort of loose, figurative, or hyperbolic language which would negate the impression that the writer was seriously maintaining that petitioner committed the crime of perjury. Id. at 21, 110 S.Ct. 2695. Second, it concluded that a determination of whether the coach committed perjury could made by considering objective evidence (i.e. the transcripts of the plaintiff coach's testimony at various proceedings). Accordingly, it concluded that the statement about the coach's testimony was not an expression of opinion protected by the First Amendment. 21 Milkovich distinguishes between what one scholar has labeled evaluative and deductive opinion. See Kathryn Dix Sowle, A Matter of Opinion: Milkovich Four Years Later, 3 Wm. & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 467, 474 (1994). According to Professor Sowle, evaluative opinions are those that are not provably false, and a writer or speaker may not be held liable on a defamation claim for expressing them. In contrast, deductive opinions are those that state or imply assertions that may be proven false; the First Amendment does not immunize them from defamation claims. See id. 22 Although the distinction between these two kinds of opinions is sometime difficult to draw, consideration of the following factors has proven useful: (1) the phrasing of the allegedly defamatory statement; (2) the context in which the statement appears; (3) the medium through which it is disseminated; and (4) the circumstances surrounding its publication. See NBC Subsidiary (KCNC-TV), Inc. v. The Living Will Center, 879 P.2d 6, 11 (Colo.1994) (en banc). A review of decisions applying Milkovich illustrates how courts have applied these factors in determining whether allegedly defamatory statements constitute protected expressions of opinion. 23 In some instances, allegedly defamatory statements have been deemed too indefinite to be proven true or false. For example, in Biospherics, Inc. v. Forbes, Inc., 151 F.3d 180, 184-85 (4th Cir.1998), the Fourth Circuit concluding that a magazine article's statement that optimistic projections about a company's stock were based on hype and hope represented the kind of irreverent and indefinite language that indicated that the writer was not stating actual facts. Similarly, Keohane v. Stewart, 882 P.2d 1293, 1300-01 (Colo.1994) (en banc), the Colorado Supreme Court concluded that letters to the editor accusing a trial judge of conspiring to let off the defendant could not be reasonably interpreted as stating actual facts because the letters were replete with speculative and hyperbolic language and because the context in which they appeared indicated that the writer was stating his opinion. 24 Other statements have been found to be protected by the First Amendment because their underlying factual premises have been fully disclosed. See, e.g., Biospherics, 151 F.3d at 185-86 (concluding that a magazine article's statements that investors would sour on a particular company and that the few independent analysts who follow the company think its stock is worth $2 on current business were protected by the First Amendment because the article disclosed the basis for its conclusions); Moldea v. New York Times, 22 F.3d 310, 317 (D.C.Cir.1994) (en banc) (holding that a statement in a book review that the author had engaged in sloppy journalism was protected by the First Amendment because the statement was supported by revealed premises that we cannot hold to be false in the context of a book review); Living Will Center, 879 P.2d at 11-12 (Colo.1994) (en banc) (concluding that a news broadcast that referred to the marketing of a living will package as a scam was protected expression of opinion because the facts on which the broadcaster based his assessment were disclosed in the broadcast and there was no hint that the assessment was based on undisclosed information). 25 Finally, in other instances, courts have concluded that, due to the subject matter involved, there is simply no objective evidence that could prove that an allegedly defamatory statement was false. See, e.g, Living Will Center, 879 P.2d at 13-14 (concluding that the statement that a product was not worth the price was not verifiable because [t]he worth of a given service or product is an inherently subjective measure which turns on myriad considerations and necessarily subjective economic, aesthetic, and personal judgments); James v. San Jose Mercury News, Inc., 17 Cal.App.4th 1, 20 Cal.Rptr.2d 890, 898 (1993) (concluding that the statement when the legal community turns on kids, it doubles their trauma was protected under Milkovich because it was not verifiable and asking, rhetorically, When does 'the legal community' 'turn on' 'kids'? What is 'trauma' in this context, and how can its increments be measured?). 26 In contrast to these decisions, courts have also applied Milkovich to conclude that certain statements, even though couched as expressions of opinion, are provably false and therefore are not protected from defamation claims by the First Amendment. For example, the Ninth Circuit has concluded that a statement in a broadcast that a product didn't work could be reasonably interpreted to refer to the performance of specific functions, a matter that could be assessed by evaluating objective evidence. Unelko Corp. v. Rooney, 912 F.2d 1049, 1053-55 (9th Cir.1990). 27