Opinion ID: 1167401
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Action for Libel

Text: Plaintiff's action for libel is against the Valley Publishing Company, a corporation, owner of the Auburn Globe-News, a weekly newspaper, and Donald M. Crew, its associate publisher. The jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff. April 11, 1956, criminal charges, which were later dismissed, were filed against plaintiff. The following day, the first of eight front-page, weekly newspaper articles concerning plaintiff and his relation with the town was published in the Auburn Globe-News. Plaintiff's action is based specifically upon the article of April 26, 1956, which is set forth verbatim in Jolly v. Fossum, 59 Wn. (2d) 20, 365 P. (2d) 780 (1961), and which a jury could find is defamatory of plaintiff. Although the article upon which this action is based purports to quote defendant Fossum, the court instructed that he was ... not responsible for any of the newspaper articles that are in evidence or for any of the statements made therein, there having been no proof or evidence connecting them therewith. Defendants made three assignments of error in the libel action: (1) Instruction 14, defining malice, should not have been given because there was no evidence of malice; (2) the court refused to give defendants' requested instruction 8, which reads as follows: There is no evidence in this case suggesting that the defendants were actuated in publishing the article in question out of any malice or ill will towards the plaintiff. Therefore, you will eliminate any consideration of malice in your deliberations. and (3) the court failed to grant defendants a new trial. [5, 6] Whatever the rule may be elsewhere, the rule in this jurisdiction was established by a sharply divided court in Owens v. Scott Pub. Co., 46 Wn. (2d) 666, 284 P. (2d) 296 (1955). This court held that a published imputation of misconduct in public office, if false, is a libel as a matter of law and that in order to be privileged, a libelous criticism or comment concerning a public official must be based on true facts. If based on true facts, the criticism or comment may be severe, vehement, exaggerated, or even ridiculous so long as the criticism or comment does not expose a living person to hatred, or contempt. This decision was affirmed in Lamanna v. Scott Pub. Co., 48 Wn. (2d) 683, 296 P. (2d) 321 (1956). In the instant case, instruction No. 13, which presents defendants' theory of fair comment, points out that the defense is available only if the ... opinions and criticism were made without malice. (Italics ours.) The challenged instruction No. 14 defines malice. The crux of defendants' assignments of error is whether, in the circumstances of the instant case, it was reversible error to give instruction 14. We think it was not error. [7] In the absence of special interrogatories to the jury, as used in Lamanna, supra, we consider the only two possibilities consistent with the jury's verdict. First, the jury found the facts stated in the article to be false and defamatory; hence, fair comment would not be available as a defense under the rationale of Owens, supra, and the instruction defining malice would be superfluous. Second, the jury found the facts of the article to be true, but the article itself illustrated an abuse of fair comment, which cannot be correctly defined without defining malice, a function fulfilled by instruction 14. The judgment against the Valley Publishing Company and Donald M. Crew is affirmed. Plaintiff will recover one half his costs on appeal against these defendants. It is so ordered. OTT, C.J., FINLEY, and HAMILTON, JJ., concur. DONWORTH, J. (concurring) I concur in opinion relating to the slander case. As to the libel case, I concur in the result because until Owens v. Scott Pub. Co., supra , is overruled I am bound by the majority decision in that case.