Opinion ID: 185352
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Verifiable Statements under Milkovich, Moldea I, and Moldea II

Text: 23 For a statement to be actionable under the First Amendment, it must at a minimum express or imply a verifiably false fact about appellant. Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 19-20 (1990); Moldea II, 22 F.3d at 313 ([S]tatements of opinion can be actionable if they imply a provably false fact, or rely upon stated facts that are provably false.). However, a statement of opinion relating to matters of public concern which does not contain a provably false factual connotation will receive full constitutional protection. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20 (relying on Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767 (1986)). Thus, the First Amendment provides protection for statements that cannot 'reasonably [be] interpreted as stating actual facts' about an individual. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20 (quoting Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 50 (1988)). In deciding whether a reasonable fact finder could conclude that a statement expressed or implied a verifiably false fact about appellant, the court must consider the statement in context. Moldea II, 22 F.3d at 313-15. This provides assurance that public debate will not suffer for lack of 'imaginative expression' or the 'rhetorical hyperbole' which has traditionally added much to the discourse of our Nation. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20 (quoting Hustler Magazine, 485 U.S. at 53-55). Verifiability is therefore a critical threshold question at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage. 24 With these principles in mind, we reject appellant's claim that, by stating that he began to suffer bouts of pessimism and paranoia following the 1981 election, the article actually attributes to appellant a debilitating psychological condition. Appellant's Br. at 15. The article's single reference to paranoia is certainly pejorative, but the author deploys it in its popular, not clinical, sense to describe and criticize what he sees as early symptoms of the nervous breakdown that afflicts conservatives today. Article, at 22. Appellees rightly point out that the definitive, clinical term paranoia has taken on a less-than-definitive popular meaning, as have crazy and nutty. 25 Appellant argues that the present case is indistinguishable from Goldwater v. Ginzburg, 414 F.2d 324 (2d Cir. 1969), in which the Second Circuit upheld a defamation judgment against media defendants for reporting that Senator Barry Goldwater had a paranoiac personality. There, two authors penned a psychobiography of the Senator for Fact Magazine, asserting that he, in fact, suffered from clinically diagnosable paranoia. In so doing, they relied on a single-question survey of thousands of psychiatrists, whom they asked whether the Senator was psychologically fit to serve as President of the United States after informing each that the Senator had already suffered from two nervous breakdowns (which was not true). Id. at 329-30. They presented their findings as a psychological profile of the Senator, detailing various instances of his political and personal conduct as predictable manifestations of an underlying psychological illness. In short, the article purported to be a well-researched psychiatric diagnosis--which it was not. 26 The holding in Goldwater is both unremarkable and inapposite. The defendants in that case had published a fraudulent diagnosis, which was itself verifiable. Here, references to bouts of pessimism and paranoia, habits of suspicion, pessimism, and antagonism, and the fact that other conservatives have acted as nutty as Weyrich, cannot be so understood.Certainly, looking at these statements in isolation, a reasonable reader might interpret them to attribute a diagnosable and debilitating mental affliction to appellant. Bouts of ... paranoia might suggest appellant actually suffered repeated delusional or psychotic episodes, as appellant's brief suggests. But, the First Amendment demands that we place these references in their proper context. Moldea II, 22 F.3d at 314 (reversing in part Moldea I on rehearing, because Moldea I erred in assuming that Milkovich abandoned the principle of looking to the context in which speech appears). 27 The present case fits comfortably within the well-guarded Bresler-Letter Carriers line of decisions, the vitality of which the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed in Milkovich. 497 U.S. at 20. In Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Ass'n v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6 (1970), the Court extended First Amendment protection to a newspaper's assertion that a real estate developer had blackmailed the city. The Court noted that the statements would have been actionable if the paper actually had accused Bresler of committing the crime of blackmail. However, context revealed that the newspaper had used the term only to describe Bresler's hard-nosed negotiating tactics. Id. at 13. Similarly, in National Ass'n of Letter Carriers v. Austin, 418 U.S. 264 (1974), the Court held that a union could not be sued for its use of the term scab, defined in part as a traitor, though actual accusations of treason would be actionable. Id. at 283-84. 28 As used in the present case, the term paranoia animates the author's critique of what he sees as appellant's (and other conservatives') unwavering and, ultimately, self-defeating political dogmatism. The difficulty in the present case, if there is one, stems from the author's decision to interweave examples of appellant's political extremism with examples of his behavioral extremism. In one episode, the article reports appellant as having snapped and frothed at the mouth, erupting in anger so irrationally that onlookers were ready to get him a room right next to Hinckley. Article, at 22. In another, he becomes apoplectic after a guest admits his homosexuality on the air. Id. at 23. Former colleagues no longer speak to him; Orrin Hatch has implied that he has psychological problems. Id. at 24. Appellant has withdrawn, [m]ore and more isolated, surrounding himself with a coterie of sycophants, including Bill Lind, whose Manichaean ideology has only encouraged [appellant]. Id. Appellant argues that these episodes and anecdotes provide as much context for the phrase bouts of ... paranoia as does the general political commentary, and a reasonable reader might therefore regard the article as actually asserting that appellant suffers from, or has been diagnosed with, a psychological ailment. 29 Admittedly, the article paints an unflattering picture of appellant. Indeed, it uses examples of his famous temper to shade the line between political extremism and personal extremism, suggesting that the alleged irrationality of the conservative right runs deeper than mere ideology. But the article's suggestion that appellant's behavior exhibited paranoia is rhetorical sophistry, not a verifiably false attribution in fact of a debilitating mental condition as was the case in Goldwater. Never does the article claim to make a psychological pronouncement, nor would a reasonable reader understand it to do so. The New Republic is itself well-known to be a magazine of political commentary, a self-described Weekly Journal of Opinion. Presented in such a loose manner, in such a well-understood context, the article's reference to bouts of ... paranoia is neither verifiable nor does it imply specific defamatory facts about appellant. Likewise, the caricatures, though biting, are not actionable. See Hustler Magazine, 485 U.S. at 53-54 (extolling the value of political cartoons to a free society). 30 These findings do not end our analysis, however. The fact that the use of the term paranoia constitutes protected, unverifiable comment in the present case does not insulate the otherwise verifiable anecdotes reported by the author in support of his assertions that Weyrich is nutty and notable for his famous temper. In other words, an article's political context does not indiscriminately immunize every statement contained therein. 31 The complaint asserts that appellees have published a number of false anecdotes, suggesting to the average reader that appellant is not only a political reactionary, but emotionally volatile, perhaps even mentally unsound, and otherwise unfit for his profession. For example, the article includes some historical vignettes which, alone and in concert, offer the reader a glimpse of appellant's famous temper. Article, at 24. Unlike the two caricatures, nothing in the common parlance of political criticism would alert a reasonable reader that the article's anecdotes about Weyrich are other than verifiable facts. Indeed, in a number of instances, the author utilizes quotations, some purportedly from appellant, to further reinforce the impression that the stories are in fact true. See Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U.S. 496, 519-20 (1991) (The orthodox use of a quotation is the quintessential 'direct account of events that speak for themselves.'  (quoting Time, Inc. v. Pape, 401 U.S. 279, 285 (1971)). The anecdotes are not offered as forms of parody, see Hustler Magazine, 485 U.S. 46 (offering examples of protected parody); they are presented as the truth about Weyrich. And in most instances, the offending anecdotes are verifiable. 32 The line separating a fabricated narrative and hyperbolic description of an actual event is sometimes fuzzy. The First Amendment protects a reporter's rational interpretation of events or factual statements when relying on ambiguous sources. Masson, 501 U.S. at 519. If it turns out that the facts underlying the offending anecdotes are true, and appellant takes issue instead with the article's description and rhetorical juxtaposition of events, appellant's claim must fail. Rational interpretation passes over into verifiably false reporting of the described events only when the author has, through description and reporting, materially altered the underlying facts. Id. at 516. These issues are not before us on this appeal, however. Rather, as noted above, our inquiries on this appeal are limited to whether the disputed article (1) contains express or implied verifiably false statements of fact, which (2) are reasonably capable of defamatory meaning or otherwise place appellant in an offensive false light. We conclude here that the reported anecdotes survive the verifiability screen. We turn now to consider whether the cited anecdotes are reasonably capable of defamatory meaning.