Opinion ID: 1188714
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the seattle times publications

Text: On December 30, 1976, The Seattle Times ran a banner-type headline that read: PHONEY PRESCRIPTIONS  $200,000 MEDICAID FRAUD CHARGED. Clerk's Papers, at 145. The article explained that Mark, the owner of two West Seattle pharmacies, had been charged with grand larceny, tampering with evidence, and 10 counts of forgery. The article quoted the chief deputy prosecutor's statement that Mark had submitted voluminous amounts of forged and false prescription forms for payment to the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). The article further quoted the deputy prosecutor and a DSHS investigator as stating that a preliminary audit indicated a loss of $200,000 by government agencies over a 32-month period, that this was the State's largest Medicaid fraud case to date, and that a preliminary audit indicated that 63 percent of the claims submitted to DSHS by Mark were invalid. The Times also reported that when investigators returned to Mark's pharmacy, they found that the files had been substantially stripped of the prescription forms needed for a further audit. Clerk's Papers, at 40. In December 1977, approximately 1 year after the original story was published, the Times printed a report of a prosecution for Medicaid prescription fraud against another pharmacist. One paragraph in that story read: The case was the second brought this year by the prosecutor's office against a local pharmacist. Earlier this year, a West Seattle pharmacist, Albert M. Mark, was found guilty of grand larceny and forgery in a case involving about $200,000 in Medicaid claims. Clerk's Papers, at 142. This later story was written by the same reporter who wrote the original article. The reporter testified in his deposition that he was unsure whether he had referred to news reports of Mark's trial or to the court files when he prepared the second story. Mark sued The Seattle Times for defamation. The Times moved for either dismissal, CR 41(b), or summary judgment, CR 56. The trial court granted the motion for summary judgment.