Opinion ID: 1698287
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statements by Elder

Text: Recognizing that the court in a defamation case must consider the entirety of a statement in determining whether the statement is actionable, we consider separately the five portions of the investigative reports which plaintiffs point to as defamatory. Of course, each portion will be considered in the context of the entire report. A defamatory communication is one that tends to harm the reputation of another so as to lower him in the estimation of the community or to deter third persons from associating or dealing with him. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 559 cmt.e (1977). The question of whether a communication is capable of a particular meaning and whether that meaning is defamatory is one for the court. [9] Bussie v. Lowenthal, 535 So.2d 378, 382 (La.1988); W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 111 (5th ed. 1984); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 614 (1977). That question is answered by determining whether a listener could have reasonably understood the communication, taken in context, to have been intended in a defamatory sense. 2 F. Harper et al, The Law of Torts § 5.4 (2d ed. 1986). We conclude that the communications at issue in this case were not defamatory and therefore not actionable. Accordingly, we do not reach the issues of whether the statements were false or whether plaintiffs were required to prove actual malice. [10] The first communication was the portion of the June 17 newscast in which Elder, after reporting that the grand jury was meeting to decide whether there was fraud involved in Lloyd's efforts to sign the heirs to contracts by claiming possession of key documents for recovery of billions of dollars of funds that the State declared were non-existent, posed the rhetorical question: Was it wrong for Marie and her attorneys, Martha Sassone and Joey Montgomery, to try and rush nearly a thousand people into signing a binding legal contract during that meeting at the V.F.W. Hall in Gretna late in April? Of course, Elder asked the question simply for effect and did not expect an answer, nor did he provide one. He did not state, as a matter of fact or opinion, that Lloyd had acted fraudulently (although he reported circumstances suggesting pressure in obtaining signatures). He merely posed the question for public consideration, thereby expressing suspicion about activities which clearly raised the suspicions of many Ronquille heirs and others. Although defamation can occur by means of a question, this question which Elder posed to the television viewers for their consideration was not one which, in and of itself, the listener would have reasonably understood to be intended in a defamatory sense so as to harm plaintiffs' reputations and to lower their community esteem. The second communication occurred during the lengthy June 1 newscast when Elder asked plaintiff Montgomery to photograph people signing the new contract, and Montgomery refused on the basis that it was private business between him and his clients. Whereupon Elder asked Montgomery, You're not taking these people to the cleaners, are you? Montgomery emphatically denied this suggestion. This question, much like the rhetorical question about the wrongness of Lloyd's and plaintiffs' activities surrounding the signing of the new contracts, merely expressed suspicion and indeed offered Montgomery an opportunity to explain the contract and the surrounding circumstances. Again, this direct question was not one which a reasonable listener would have taken to so harm plaintiffs' reputations as to lower the community's opinion of them. The unusual circumstances surrounding the heirs' signing of contracts presented a situation about which Elder was entitled to investigate and to raise questions for public consideration. Elder's use of interviews of two heirs to tell the television audience that some heirs believed plaintiffs did not have working telephone numbers and that some heirs at the May 6 meeting did not know plaintiffs' last names is also not defamatory. In the June 1 newscast Elder published statements by three of Lloyd's critics. The second critic stated that her daughter tried to reach the attorneys, but [t]he do not have a working number. Pointing to Elder's admission in his deposition that he had telephoned plaintiffs and thus knew that plaintiffs had operating office telephones and listed numbers, plaintiffs argue that the critic's statement, published by Elder without equivocation or limitation, communicated to the viewer that plaintiffs did not have working telephone numbers, a fact Elder knew to be false. The key question is whether the critic's statement is defamatory. [11] Plaintiffs argue that a statement to a television audience that an attorney does not have a working telephone number conveys the message that the lawyer is somewhat shady or is practicing law in a manner suggestive of substandard operations, thereby impugning the lawyer's reputation and reducing his esteem in the community. Plaintiffs in effect claim defamation by innuendo. In defamation by implication or innuendo, the court must distinguish between statements of opinion and statements of fact. In the case of opinion, if the defendant states non-defamatory facts on which he bases his derogatory opinion, he is not liable for defamation unless the opinion indicates the existence of other facts which are defamatory and would justify the forming of the opinion. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 566 cmt.c (1977). But if the defendant states a derogatory opinion without disclosing the facts on which it is based, he may be liable for defamation if the comment creates the reasonable inference that the opinion is justified by the existence of undisclosed defamatory facts. Id. Elder's use of the critic's comment was a statement of fact that one person attempted to telephone one of the plaintiffs one time and somehow came to the conclusion that the lawyer did not have a working number. This may not be the pinnacle of fairness in news reporting by a reporter who had himself telephoned the lawyer, but the issue here is defamation. Unless implications are considered, the critic's statement is not defamatory. But when the court looks not at what was said, but at what impression was created, a media publication can give rise to an infinite number of impressions. When a public figure and matter of public concern are involved, perhaps there can be no defamation by implication. See Schaefer v. Lynch, 406 So.2d 185 (La.1981). But even if this court were to recognize defamation by implication in actions by private plaintiffs against media defendants (an issue we hereby pretermit), adequate protection of freedom of the press at least requires that the plaintiffs prove that the alleged implication is the principal inference a reasonable reader or viewer will draw from the publication as having been intended by the publisher. [12] Here, a reasonable viewer would not draw, from the critic's statement of her daughter's hasty conclusion, the principal inference that plaintiffs are shady lawyers. Any number of equally plausible inferences can be drawn from the brief statement. Accordingly, we conclude that a reasonable viewer could not have understood the words as intended in a defamatory sense. The statement, especially when considered in the context of several consecutive statements critical of Lloyd, does not give rise to a defamatory inference. Bussie v. Lowenthal, 535 So.2d 378, 382 (La.1988). Similar to the preceding statement, Elder published on June 17 a question-and-answer session with an heir which focused on that person's statement that he and other heirs attending the May 6 meeting did not know plaintiffs' last names. In their affidavits plaintiffs asserted that they introduced themselves with their full names at the May 6 meeting. Because Elder had left a microphone in the hall when he was ushered out and because he admitted in his deposition that he listened to portions of the meeting from outside the hall after his departure, plaintiffs contend it is at least a jury question whether Elder knew the heir's statement about plaintiffs' last names was false. They further contend that the statement that an attorney failed to disclose his or her last name to a mass meeting of clients-heirs was defamatory. According to plaintiffs, such a statement tells the television audience, for no apparent reason other than to undermine the perception of the lawyer's integrity, that this lawyer operates in a clandestine manner so as to hide his or her identity. The heir's comments simply stated that he and several other heirs in attendance did not know the last names of the new lawyers brought in by Lloyd. Although the extended interrogation of this heir was of questionable newsworthiness, a reasonable listener to the communication, especially when considered in the context of the entire newscast, could not draw the principal inference that plaintiffs lacked integrity or operated their practices in an unethical manner, or understand the communication in a manner that would lower plaintiffs' reputations and community esteem. Elder's statements in the June 1 newscast about his interview with Greenburg present a tougher question on defamation. Elder followed his lead-in statement District Attorney Doug Greenburg began digging into the matter with a clip of Greenburg saying in an apparently positive declaration, It's an extortion. I think that it smacks of fraud.... But in a subsequent deposition Greenburg asserted he made the taped comment, not as his views on the proved criminality of Lloyd's activities as established by acceptable evidence, but in response to Elder's hypothetical question which assumed the truth about Lloyd's activities described by Elder. Greenburg stated that he was shocked by the inaccurate representation of the total interview in which he gave a general response to a question of a general criminal law nature. In the next clip of Greenburg's interview, Elder suggested Greenburg's anger over the vulnerability of the victims, but Greenburg in deposition denied characterizing anyone as a victim. He stated that in the taped interview he described the people who complained to him as persons of limited means who could have been misled, but did not express an opinion that they had been victimized, as he believed the investigative report had led viewers to believe. Later, Elder led in with the statement District Attorney Doug Greenburg minced no words in describing the alleged actions of one Marie Lloyd Giordano, followed by Greenburg's taped statement that [t]his person is a criminal charlatan of the worst order. In his deposition Greenburg asserted that his interview statement was to the effect that if the allegations about Lloyd were proved, this person was a criminal charlatan of the worst order. Elder followed these statements about Lloyd with a statement that Greenburg's investigation centered on the contract (shown on the screen) which obligated the heirs to pay a substantial amount of any recovery to Lloyd and to the lawyers, and then named plaintiffs as the lawyers who together with Lloyd called the meeting to change the contract that the district attorney is looking into. Elder's use of Greenburg's statements arguably present a jury question whether the statements were maliciously misused and so distorted as to be untrue. But malice and falsity do not become pertinent until it is determined at the outset whether the communications were defamatory to these plaintiffs. Significantly, neither Greenburg in the clips of his interview nor Elder in his comments leading into the clip of Greenburg's interview ever mentioned plaintiffs. The ten-minute report of June 1 concentrated on Lloyd and her use of claimed documents to secure substantial payments and contingency contracts from other heirs for recovery of billions of dollars held in an escrow account disclaimed by the State. Elder carefully used words like possible fraud and alleged actions to describe Lloyd's activities, and then presented comments on the alleged actions of one Marie Lloyd Giordano by Greenburg, who was conducting an investigation into the heirs' complaints about Lloyd. The harsh comments by Greenburg, whatever the context, were directed at Lloyd (who was eventually indicted for fraud) and not at plaintiffs. After Greenburg's statements, Elder did refer to the contracts and to the meeting called by Lloyd and plaintiffs to revise the contracts. But the connection between Lloyd's using claimed documents to solicit heirs for contributions and contracts over several years and plaintiffs' role in the May 16 meeting to sign new contracts was tenuous at best. After reviewing the videotape of the June 1 news report containing the excerpts of Greenburg's interview, and considering the report in its entirety, we conclude that the report could not be understood by a reasonable and detached viewer so as to harm plaintiffs' reputation or to lower their esteem in the community. We hold that the use of Greenburg's interview, although arguably distorted, did not constitute defamation as to these plaintiffs and was not actionable. In summary, we conclude that the overall news reports focused on questions rather than conclusions and that the communications pointed out by plaintiffs, when considered in the context of the overall reports and the almost total emphasis on Lloyd's suspicious and protracted activities, were not capable of being understood by a reasonable viewer as intending a defamatory meaning toward these plaintiffs.