Opinion ID: 1779363
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Common-law malice

Text: At common law, [e]very defamatory publication, whether expressed by words, spoken or by writing . . . imputing to any person that . . . which is calculated to make him infamous . . . or ridiculous, prima facie implies malice in the ... publisher. . ., and proof of malice [was] not in such cases ... required ... beyond the proof of the publication itself. Martin L. Newell, The Law of Slander and Libel § 342, at 381 (4th ed.1924). In Alabama, punitive damages were recoverable upon proof of actual, or express, malice. Lee v. Crump, 146 Ala. 655, 659, 40 So. 609, 610 (1906). The common law of this state has long recognized that [w]ords, calumnious in their nature, may be deprived of their actionable quality by the occasion of the utterance or publication. When this is the case, they are called in the law of defamation privileged communications. These communications are either absolutely or [ qualifiedly ] privileged. Lawson v. Hicks, 38 Ala. 279, 284 (1862) (emphasis added). When they are [qualifiedly] privileged, the law simply withdraws the legal inference of malice, and gives a protection upon the condition, that actual malice, or express malice, or malice in fact, (as the same idea is variously phrased,) is not shown. Id. When the defendant interposes a qualified privilege, the plaintiff must plead defamation with actual [common-law] malice and bears the burden of proving defamation with actual [common-law] malice. Ex parte Blue Cross, 773 So.2d at 478 (emphasis added). Common-law malice implies a desire and intention to injure .... that is, that the defendant was actuated by ill-will in what he did and said, with a design to causelessly or wantonly injure the plaintiff. Newell, supra, § 277, at 315. [T]his malice in fact, resting as it must upon the libelous matter itself and the surrounding circumstances tending to prove fact and motive, is a question to be determined by the jury. Id. (Emphasis added.) Common-law malice focuses on the defamation defendant's attitude toward the plaintiff or a third party, that is, the defendant's motive to publish a falsehood. Konikoff v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, 234 F.3d 92, 99 (2d Cir.2000); Clemente v. Espinosa, 749 F.Supp. 672, 682 (E.D.Pa.1990); Norton v. Glenn, 797 A.2d 294, 299 (Pa.Super.2002); M. Newell, supra, §§ 271-77; John E. Hallen, Character of Belief Necessary for the Conditional Privilege in Defamation, 25 Ill. L.Rev. 865, 866 (1931). In Phillips v. Bradshaw, 167 Ala. 199, 210, 52 So. 662, 666 (1910), this Court stated, albeit in dicta, that a jury charge to the effect that the marking of a statement with knowledge of its falsity is  conclusive evidence of malice correctly stated the law. (Emphasis added.) A similar, but narrower, statement appeared later in Kenney v. Gurley, 208 Ala. 623, 626, 95 So. 34, 37 (1923), where the Court said: `[P]roof that [the] defendant knew [the statement] was untrue when he made it would be evidence of malice. ' (Emphasis added) (quoting Newell, The Law of Slander and Libel § 398 (3d ed.1914)), overruled on other grounds, Ex parte Blue Cross, 773 So.2d at 478. In Johnson Publishing Co. v. Davis, 271 Ala. 474, 487, 124 So.2d 441, 450 (1960), released four years before the United States Supreme Court decided New York Times v. Sullivan , this Court stated: Malice, actual or expressed, may be shown by evidence of hostility, rivalry, the violence of the language, the mode and extent of publication, including the recklessness of the publication and prior information regarding its falsity.  (Emphasis added.) This statement was not dicta, because Davis involved an award of punitive damages. Additionally, the Court based its holding solely on evidence showing that a statement regarding a charge against the plaintiff was published, despite the publisher's knowledge that the charge against [the defamation plaintiff] was uninvestigated and possibly false. 271 Ala. at 486, 124 So.2d at 449. In Barnett, 536 So.2d at 54, this Court stated clearly, albeit again in dicta: Common law malice also includes defamatory statements that are `made with knowledge that they are false or made with reckless disregard of whether they are false. ' (emphasis added) (quoting Prudential Ins. Co. of America v. Watts, 451 So.2d 310, 313 (Ala.Civ.App.1984)). See also Hayes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 953 F.Supp. 1334, 1341 (M.D.Ala.1996) (Common law malice also includes defamatory statements made with knowledge of their falsity or with reckless disregard as to whether they are false.); Lewis v. Ritch, 417 So.2d 210 (Ala.Civ.App.1982). See generally Restatement (Second) of Torts § 600 (1977), which states: Except as stated in § 602, one who upon an occasion giving rise to a [qualified] privilege publishes false and defamatory matter concerning another abuses the privilege if he (a) knows the matter to be false, or (b) acts in reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity. Common-law malice and the methods of proving it differ in a number of important respects from the constitutional malice established by New York Times v. Sullivan .