Opinion ID: 3052326
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Meaning of “negligent publication”

Text: [2] “Negligent publication” is not defined in the AISLIC policy, nor does it appear in lay or legal dictionaries or in any California statute. Because there is no evidence that the parties intended the term to carry a technical meaning, the ordinary and popular meaning of the term governs. AIU Ins. Co., 51 Cal. 3d at 823; see also Cal. Civ. Code § 1644. 8760 SONY v. AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE Sony argues that the term “negligent publication” should have a broad meaning which it derives from stringing together the dictionary definitions of “negligent” and “publication.” According to Sony, “negligent publication” in the AISLIC policy refers to “a communication of information to the public, lacking or exhibiting a lack of due care or concern.” Sony argues that this definition, broad enough to include the false advertising and negligent misrepresentation claims in the Kim/Kaen lawsuits, is the plain meaning of the term. Sony’s definition is not the proper plain meaning of the term. While Sony is correct that courts often consult dictionaries to derive the ordinary and popular meaning of terms in insurance contracts, see Scott v. Continental Ins. Co., 44 Cal. App. 4th 24, 29-30 (Ct. App. 1996), Sony’s definition is inconsistent with the context of the AISLIC policy as a whole, see id. at 29 n.4 (“[T]he multiple meanings of a word as found in a dictionary cannot be inserted into the text of an insurance policy without regard to the document construed as a whole, [and] the exact context of the language.”); MacKinnon, 31 Cal. 4th at 649 (“Although examination of various dictionary definitions of a word will no doubt be useful, such examination does not necessarily yield the ‘ordinary and popular’ sense of the word if it disregards the policy’s context.”); Palmer, 21 Cal. 4th at 1116-17. [3] The policy Sony purchased from AISLIC covered Sony for wrongful acts defined in seven different sections, each including a list of related terms. For example, part (a) included “defamation, disparagement, or harm to the character or reputation of any person, or entity”; part (b) listed “invasion, infringement, or interference with rights of privacy or publicity”; parts (c), (d), (e), and (f) covered copyright infringement, unfair competition, unauthorized use of name or likeness, and unintentional failure to credit on a matter, respectively. Part (g) read that wrongful acts also consisted of “defective advice, incitement, and negligent publication.” Given that sections (a)-(f) each listed a series of related torts, SONY v. AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE 8761 the placement of “negligent publication” within the policy suggests that the term refers to a narrow tort relating to defective advice and incitement, not a broad tort distinct from those terms. See Am. Motorists Ins. Co. v. Allied-Sysco Food Services, Inc., 19 Cal. App. 4th at 1347, 1350-51 (Ct. App. 1993) (agreeing with the insurer that “the policy’s coverage for damages arising out of ‘humiliation’ is limited to those cases in which humiliation damages arise out of the types of torts in which it is grouped — i.e., libel, slander, defamation of character, and invasion of the right to privacy”), overruled on other grounds in Buss v. Superior Court, 16 Cal. 4th 35, 50 & n.12 (1997). Yet, Sony’s expansive definition of “negligent publication” disregards the term’s placement in wrongful act (g) next to incitement and defective advice. If “negligent publication” were defined as Sony suggests — a communication of information to the public, lacking or exhibiting a lack of due care or concern — then the term would be broad enough to subsume virtually all of the other wrongful acts defined in the policy, such as defamation, misappropriation, infringement of copyright, unauthorized use of name or likeness, and unintentional failure to credit on a matter. Such a reading ignores the maxim that “a court must interpret . . . [policy] language in context, with regard to its intended function in the policy,” Bank of the W., 2 Cal. 4th at 1265. [4] Further, the AISLIC policy was a media liability policy. Its affirmative coverage provisions were strictly limited to the types of claims normally faced by media publishers, such as defamation, copyright infringement, and so on. Notably absent from those provisions was any coverage for product defects. In fact, the exclusions in the policy made clear that it was not intended to protect Sony from suits like Kim/Kaen. AISLIC explicitly disclaimed liability for suits alleging breach of warranties, representations, or guarantees (Exclusion J); for suits arising from violations of consumer protection laws (Exclusion C); and for suits alleging false advertising or misrepresentation in advertising (Exclusion P).2 2 Sony argues that Exclusion P “provides strong evidence of coverage” because AISLIC would only have included the exclusion if it believed that 8762 SONY v. AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE Sony’s expansive interpretation of “negligent publication” fails to recognize the limited coverage in the AISLIC media liability policy, and thus fails to properly construe “the language in a contract . . . in the context of that instrument as a whole.” Bank of the W., 4 Cal. 4th at 1265. Sony’s construction of “negligent publication” is also unpersuasive because it is not supported by the case law, which we look to as further evidence of the proper meaning of the term. See AIU, 51 Cal. 3d at 825-28. Though the cases do not yield one clear definition of “negligent publication,” the cases that reference the term are a limited set, none of which use the term as broadly as Sony does. For example, in one line of cases, “negligent publication” is used to describe a cause of action in which plaintiffs attempt to hold publishers liable for material that led readers to engage in harmful conduct. See, e.g. Way v. Boy Scouts of Am., 856 S.W.2d 230, 232-34 (Tex. App. 1993) (plaintiff sued magazine for the “negligent publication” of an advertisement for firearms that she alleged led her son to accidentally kill himself); Smith v. Linn, 563 A.2d 123, 125 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1989) (plaintiff sued the publisher of a diet book, claiming that his wife — who read the book and followed its instructions — died of cardiac arrest due to the book’s “negligent publication”); Hyde v. City of Columbia, 637 S.W. 2d 251, 253 (Mo. Ct. App. 1982) (abduction victim brought action against newspaper for the negligent publication of her name and address while her assailant was still at large); see also Eimann v. Soldier of Fortune Magazine, Inc., 880 F.2d 830 (5th Cir. 1989) (son and mother of murder victim sued magafalse advertising was otherwise covered. This type of argument has been rejected by California courts as “superficial and contrary to proper coverage analysis.” Old Republic Ins. Co. v. Superior Court, 66 Cal. App. 4th 128, 145 (Ct. App. 1998), overruled on other grounds in Vandenberg v. Superior Court, 21 Cal. 4th 815, 838 n.12, 839 (1999). SONY v. AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE 8763 zine for publishing gun for hire advertisement through which victim’s husband hired assassin to kill her). Other courts have used the term “negligent publication” to explain that creative pleading does not change the analysis of a defamation-based claim or applicable privileges, see, e.g., Newcombe v. Adolf Coors Co., 157 F.3d 686, 695 (9th Cir. 1998); Block v. Sacramento Clinical Labs, Inc., 131 Cal. App. 3d 386, 392-93 (Ct. App. 1982), or to describe one of the elements of a defamation action, see, e.g., Mandel v. Boston Phoenix, 456 F.3d 198, 209 (1st Cir. 2006); Reilly v. Associated Press, 797 N.E. 2d 1204, 1209 n.3 (Mass. App. Ct. 2003). In addition, “negligent publication” has been used to describe negligence on the part of advertisers who breached contracts by erroneously printing plaintiff’s information. See, e.g., Continental Kennel Club, Inc. v. Fancy Publ’ns, Inc., 763 So. 2d 827, 828 (La. App. 2000); Discount Fabric House of Racine, Inc. v. Wisconsin Tel. Co., 345 N.W.2d 417, 425 (Wis. 1984). Thus, while the term “negligent publication” has been used in a variety of cases, no case uses the term as expansively as Sony suggests. Sony would have “negligent publication” mean “a communication of information to the public, lacking or exhibiting a lack of due care or concern,” yet the case law is essentially limited to plaintiffs suing publishers for the contents of books, articles, or advertisements. A couple of cases have involved plaintiffs suing individuals or governments — rather than publishers — for defamation or related claims, see, e.g., Block, 131 Cal. App. 3d at 392-93, but even their use of the term remains entirely distinct from Sony’s proffered definition. In light of the above, we cannot adopt Sony’s definition of “negligent publication” as the meaning of the term in the AISLIC policy. A more limited definition of the term is appropriate, one that is consistent with the context of the policy and supported in the case law. We find that defining the term 8764 SONY v. AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE “negligent publication” as a narrow tort in which the publication of material leads the reader to commit a harmful act meets these criteria. This definition of “negligent publication” is supported by the Smith, Way, and Hyde line of cases, which involved plaintiffs who sued publishers for harm resulting from the contents of a book, magazine, or newspaper. The legal literature is also helpful in this respect; scholars have recognized “negligent publication” as a cause of action in which plaintiffs attempt to hold a publisher liable for harm encouraged or instructed by a publication.3 More importantly, defining “negligent publication” in this manner is consistent with the context of the AISLIC policy. Recall that “negligent publication” was placed next to defective advice and incitement in the AISLIC policy. Our definition of “negligent publication” appropriately describes a tort similar to those wrongful acts. For example, in incitement cases, like in “negligent publication” cases, the plaintiff alleges that defendant’s publication of material encouraged or instructed the reader to commit a harmful act. However, the plaintiff asserts incitement on the part of the defendant as well as negligence in an effort to avoid First Amendment problems. See, e.g., Herceg v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 814 F.2d 3 See, e.g., Susan M. Gilles, “Poisonous” Publications and Other False Speech Physical Harm Cases, 37 Wake Forest L. Rev. 1073, 1081-83 (2002) (“[A]ctions for negligent publication . . . [involve plaintiffs who] sue publishers and assert that by publishing false statements that cause physical harm, the defendants have breached a duty to independently investigate the accuracy of the text.”) (citing Smith as an example); see also Mark Sableman, Link Law Revisited: Internet Linking Law at Five Years, 16 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 1273, 1316 n.235 (2001) (“ ‘[N]egligent publication’ theory seeks to hold a publisher liable for publishing material that instructs and/or encourages readers in committing violent or other unlawful conduct.”); Charles A. Glasser, Jr. & Mark A. Sirota, Outline of Decisions Involving “Negligent Publication” and Products Liability Claims Against Publishers, 516 Practising Law Inst. 719, 721 (1998) (citing Way). SONY v. AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE 8765 1017, 1018-19 (5th Cir. 1987) (plaintiff claimed that a Hustler article about erotic asphyxiation incited her son to attempt the practice, which led to his death); Yakubowicz v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 536 N.E.2d 1067, 1070-71 (Mass. 1989) (plaintiff claimed film incited teenagers to kill his son); McCollum v. CBS, Inc., 202 Cal. App. 3d 989, 999-1001 (Ct. App. 1988). The term defective advice can be described as a related theory of liability, in which plaintiffs argue that the “advice” in a publication is a “defective product,” and attempt to hold the publisher strictly liable. See, e.g., Winter v. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 938 F.2d 1033, 1034-36 (9th Cir. 1991) (plaintiffs became ill after eating poisonous mushrooms labeled as edible in book and asserted defective product claims against the publisher); Lewin v. McCreight, 655 F. Supp. 282, 282-83 (E.D. Mich. 1987) (plaintiffs experienced an explosion while following instructions in a book and sued the publisher for “defective ideas”); Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. v. Jeppesen & Co., 642 F.2d 339, 341-43 (9th Cir. 1981); see also Sandra Davidson, Blood Money: When Media Expose Others to Risk of Bodily Harm, 19 Hastings Comm. & Ent. L.J. 225, 248-90 (1997) (describing plaintiffs’ efforts to hold media entities liable for harmful content under negligence, incitement, and products liability theories); Terri R. Day, Publications that Incite, Solicit, or Instruct: Publisher Responsibility or Caveat Emptor?, 36 Santa Clara L. Rev. 73 (1995) (same). We find that defining “negligent publication” as a tort faced only by publishers also properly construes the policy as a whole, because it takes into account the AISLIC policy’s status as a media liability policy with limited coverage provisions. Bank of the W., 4 Cal. 4th at 1265. And whereas a broader reading of the term would disregard the other “wrongful acts” listed in the policy,4 defining negligent publi- 4 For example, the district court relied on Newcombe to hold that “negligent publication” referred to “that category of tort claims typified by defamation and misappropriation,” Sony Comp. Entm’t, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30424, at , but the AISLIC policy defines defamation and misappropriation as separate wrongful acts in coverage provisions (a) and (c). 8766 SONY v. AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE cation as a cause of action in which a plaintiff alleges that a defendant’s publication led to harmful conduct does not overlap with any of the other “wrongful acts.” See Boghos v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s of London, 36 Cal. 4th 495, 503 (2005) (disfavoring constructions of contractual provisions that would render other provisions surplusage). [5] In sum, we hold that the term “negligent publication” in the AISLIC policy refers to a very narrow tort in which the publication of material encourages or instructs readers to engage in harmful conduct. We reject Sony’s expansive definition as inconsistent with the context of the policy as a whole and unsupported by the case law. Sony, a sophisticated purchaser, clearly could have purchased coverage for product defects or false advertising — indeed, Sony previously held an insurance policy with AISLIC that covered “any error or omission, misstatement, misleading statement or misinterpretation” — yet the policy at issue in this lawsuit did not include such coverage. Sony’s attempt to expand the meaning of “negligent publication” to cover all negligent communications with the public fails.