Opinion ID: 2338779
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Libel Claims against the Gannett Defendants: The Newspaper Article and Headline

Text: As with Ramunno's claims against the MBNA Defendants, the Superior Court dismissed Ramunno's complaint against the Gannett Defendants on the rationale that the statements in question  comprising the newspaper article of June 7, 1996, and its accompanying headline  were nonactionable. Indeed, its dismissal of the complaint as to the Gannett Defendants derived largely from its analysis of Cawley's letter. Because, for the most part, Barrish's article simply described statements contained in the letter  which, as noted, the Superior Court found nonactionable  the Court held that the article itself was not defamatory. But as to the Gannett Defendants, Ramunno's complaint also referred the Court to the headline, MBNA chairman blasts landowner as slumlord. The Superior Court rejected Ramunno's argument that the headline was defamatory standing alone, and found that, when read in context with the entire article, the headline constitutes a protected expression of opinion. Once again, we disagree and reverse. In Reardon v. News-Journal Company [29] , we noted that the sting of a libel may sometimes be contained ... in a headline to the body of [an] article, even though the facts are correctly set forth in the body. [30] We acknowledged as well that under other circumstances, it is appropriate to read the headline in full context  that is, in conjunction with the text of the body. [31] The Reardon Court declined to approve one approach to the exclusion of the other, [32] and we adopt the same posture here. We need not reach Ramunno's claim that the headline itself is libelous, for we believe that reading the article and headline together makes clear that the complaint states a proper claim against the Gannett Defendants. In large part, the article simply quotes verbatim from Cawley's letter and Ramunno's response thereto. But on two occasions, Barrish states that Ramunno owns 70 properties, without explaining that only one is currently occupied by a residential tenant. Barrish recounts Ramunno's indignant reaction to the letter, but does not explain that the source of his consternation is the error in Cawley's account of his landholdings. The article makes evident that Ramunno is the one who injected the term slumlord into the dispute, but Barrish does not make clear that Ramunno arrived at that conclusion in part because of inaccuracies in Cawley's letter. This may or may not seem trivial to the trier of fact, but it is the trier of fact that must make that determination. We do not suggest that these omissions on Barrish's part render the article libelous by their own force. But when read in conjunction with the headline, which deploys the term slumlord in a most conspicuous fashion, the article may convey the inaccurate impression that Ramunno does, in fact, own a sizable amount of sub-standard rental housing. [33] More disclosure of the underlying factual basis  including an exact description of Ramunno's real estate holdings  would shed light on Ramunno's reaction to Cawley's letter and cure the article's potentially defamatory character. But as it stands, the article and headline constitute statements actionable on their face in the context of all the allegations of the complaint, which must be accepted as true for purposes of the motion to dismiss. [34] Of course, as to media defendants, it does not suffice simply to allege that a statement is false and defamatory. In Kanaga, we held that in a defamation action, a plaintiff must show at least negligence against a media defendant. [35] We find that Ramunno's complaint satisfies this standard. Ramunno alleged specifically that the MBNA Defendants knew that Cawley's letter was false, and that it was an attempt to portray Ramunno as a slumlord. [36] Ramunno's complaint thus satisfies the requirements of Kanaga, and it was error for the Superior Court to dismiss it for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted.