Opinion ID: 3064643
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Specific “Lying” Statements

Text: [8] Martino’s “lying” statements were also not sufficiently factual to imply a false factual assertion. Rather, the statements were more like the accusation that Underwager was “perseverating” regarding his professional credentials — an accusation that is a “nonactionable rhetorical hyperbole, a vigorous epithet used by those who considered [the appellant’s] position extremely unreasonable.” Underwager, 69 F.3d at 367 (internal quotation marks omitted). Martino made at least two loose, hyperbolic statements during the broadcast, which were an obvious exaggeration (“Polaris sucks” and “Polaris Industries plus Mt. Hood Polaris equals sucks”), so that it would be understood that the contested statements were the type of obvious exaggeration generally employed on Martino’s program and held to be nonactionable in Underwager, 60 F.3d at 361, not false factual assertions. We do not find that the holdings in Milkovich, 497 U.S. 1, or Manufactured Home Communities, Inc., 554 F.3d 959, are applicable to this case because Martino’s statements do not rise to the same level of criminal accusations that were at issue in those cases. In Milkovich, the defendant published a newspaper opinion article entitled “Maple beat the law with the big lie,” which asserted that the plaintiff, a former high school wrestling coach, committed perjury in a judicial proceeding to cover up his team’s altercation with another high school’s team. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 4-5. The Supreme Court held that the defendant’s statements were defamatory because the article did not use the “sort of loose, figurative, or hyperbolic language which would negate the impression that the writer was seriously maintaining that [plaintiff] committed the crime of perjury.” Id. at 2. In Manufactured Home Communities, Inc., 544 F.3d 959, defendant county supervisor Diane Jacobs made several comments to the local media alleging that the plaintiff had lied to the Department of Environmental Health about its clean up efforts in response to a sewage spill and also made a claim that the District Attorney was inter4840 GARDNER v. MARTINO ested in following up to determine whether there were civil and/or criminal actions that should be filed against the plaintiff. Id. at 963-64. Martino’s statements are factually distinguishable because he did not accuse Appellants of committing a serious civil and/or criminal violation. [9] In sum, we hold that the statements of which Appellants complain were not assertions of fact.