Opinion ID: 616835
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Defamation and False Light Claims

Text: Roberts' defamation and false light claims stem from the press release McAfee posted on its website on May 30, 2006, which asserted that Roberts had acted improper[ly] in connection with stock options. The press release remained up on McAfee's website as late as November 2009. Because Roberts did not file suit until September 16, 2009, more than three years after the press release was first posted, the district court struck the claims as time-barred under the applicable one-year statute of limitations, Cal.Code Civ. P. § 340(c). We agree. California Civil Code § 3425.3 sets forth a single-publication rule that governs the statute of limitations analysis where a statement made in a mass communication forms the basis of a tort action: No person shall have more than one cause of action for damages for libel or slander or invasion of privacy or any other tort founded upon any single publication or exhibition or utterance, such as any one issue of a newspaper or book or magazine or any one presentation to an audience or any one broadcast over radio or television or any one exhibition of a motion picture. Recovery in any action shall include all damages for any such tort suffered by the plaintiff in all jurisdictions. Cal. Civ.Code § 3425.3 (West 1997). The single-publication rule limits tort claims premised on mass communications to a single cause of action that accrues upon the first publication of the communication, thereby spar[ing] the courts from litigation of stale claims where an offending book or magazine is resold years later. Christoff v. Nestle USA, Inc., 47 Cal.4th 468, 97 Cal.Rptr.3d 798, 213 P.3d 132, 138 (2009) (quoting Gregoire v. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 298 N.Y. 119, 81 N.E.2d 45, 48 (1948)). The rule applies to false light, as well as to defamation claims. Id., 97 Cal. Rptr.3d 798, 213 P.3d at 137; see Fellows v. Nat'l Enquirer, Inc., 42 Cal.3d 234, 228 Cal.Rptr. 215, 721 P.2d 97, 104 (1986) (citing Fouts v. Fawcett Publ'ns, 116 F.Supp. 535, 537 (D.Conn.1953)). And, as Roberts concedes, the rule encompasses statements published on internet websites. Although the California Supreme Court has not addressed the issue, the California Courts of Appeal have uniformly applied the rule to websites. See Traditional Cat Ass'n, Inc. v. Gilbreath, 118 Cal.App.4th 392, 13 Cal. Rptr.3d 353, 355 (2004) ([T]he single-publication rule applies to statements published on Internet Web sites.); id. at 362 ([W]e have very little doubt that ... our Supreme Court would find that ... interests [in free expression] require application of the single-publication rule to Web-page publication.); Long v. Walt Disney Co., 116 Cal.App.4th 868, 10 Cal.Rptr.3d 836, 838, 840-41 (2004); Ibarra v. Carpinello, 2011 WL 925719, at  (Cal.Ct.App. 2011) (unpublished) (Defendants' publication on the Internet, no matter how long it remained available thereafter, is deemed a single publication as of the date it was first posted.); Taylor v. Kuwatch, 2004 WL 1463046, at  (Cal.Ct.App.2004) (unpublished) (The uniform single publication rule ... applies to publication on the Internet.); see also Lockton v. Small, 2005 WL 357890, at  (Cal.Ct.App.2005) (unpublished) (describing as persuasive decisions from other states that hold that the single publication rule applies to the Internet and that the first posting establishes the publication date.); [6] Oja v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng'rs, 440 F.3d 1122, 1133 (9th Cir.2006) (applying common-law single-publication rule to internet publications). Information is generally considered published within the meaning of the single-publication rule when it is first made available to the public, Traditional Cat Ass'n, 13 Cal.Rptr.3d at 359; that happened here when McAfee first posted the press release on its website in 2006. Roberts acknowledges, as he must, that any claim based on that initial publication is time-barred. But he contends McAfee's failure to take down the press release once it received substantial indications of falsity amounted to a republication, restarting the limitations period and keeping his defamation and false light claims alive. [7] We are not persuaded that Roberts' argument correctly foretells California law. He cites no case that actually espouses the theory, and other courts have rightly rejected similar theories. See D.A.R.E. America v. Rolling Stone Magazine, 101 F.Supp.2d 1270, 1287 (C.D.Cal. 2000) (There is no authority to support Plaintiffs' argument that a publisher may be liable for defamation because it fails to retract a statement upon which grave doubt is cast after publication.); Lockton, 2005 WL 357890, at  ([W]e fail to see the connection between a refusal to retract and the expectation of republication.); see also Coughlin v. Westinghouse Broad. & Cable, Inc., 689 F.Supp. 483, 488 (E.D.Pa. 1988) (Counsel have not been able to come up with any case in any American jurisdiction which recognizes a claim sounding in damages for failure to retract what is defamatory.). The fundamental problem with Roberts' theorythat a mass communication is republished when the defendant fails to retract it after receiving notice of its falsityis that it undermines the single-publication rule. That rule is designed to provide repose to defendants by precluding stale claims based on dated but still-lingering mass communications. See Traditional Cat Ass'n, 13 Cal.Rptr.3d at 358-59. But if we were to adopt Roberts' position, repose would never be certain. A newspaper article published forty years ago whose veracity is called into question today could subject the publisher to a defamation suit. Such a result would be entirely at odds with the goal of the single-publication rule. See Christoff, 97 Cal.Rptr.3d 798, 213 P.3d at 138. Roberts fails to address this problem. Instead, he cites inapposite authorities concerning a property-owner's liability for defamatory matter published on her property by a third party. See Hellar v. Bianco, 111 Cal.App.2d 424, 244 P.2d 757 (1952) (holding that the proprietor of a public venue, such as a tavern, becomes liable for defamation if she learns that a third party has written a defamatory statement on the venue's walls and fails to remove it); Barnes v. Yahoo! Inc., 570 F.3d 1096, 1103 (9th Cir.2009) (defamation sometimes imposes an affirmative duty to remove a publication made by another); Tacket v. Gen. Motors Corp., 836 F.2d 1042, 1046 (7th Cir.1987) (Failing to remove a libel from your building, after notice and opportunity to do so, [can form a basis for liability].); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 577(2) (1977) (explicating the rule set forth in Hellar ). None of these authorities addresses the definition of republication; indeed, none addresses the single-publication rule at all. Roberts' reliance on Justice Werdegar's concurrence in Christoff is also misplaced, even assuming that it is a reliable guidepost on how the California Supreme Court would rule. The issue in Christoff was whether the defendant's continued issuance of tortious material (coffee-can labels bearing an unauthorized image of the plaintiff) was subject to the single-publication rule and, if so, how that rule applied. Christoff, 97 Cal.Rptr.3d 798, 213 P.3d at 133. The majority remanded on the issue of whether Nestle's continued production of substantially identical coffee-can labels for several years was a single integrated publication. In a concurrence, Justice Werdegar attempted to provide guidance on what might count as republication in such circumstances. Neither the majority opinion nor Justice Werdegar's concurrence said anything about whether a company's inactionits failure to retract a publicationcould amount to a republication. And, while Justice Werdegar's concurrence was not adopted by the majority and therefore is not the law of California, even if it were, it would not help Roberts. In her concurrence, Justice Werdegar suggested that, where a publication has been out of print or unavailable in digital form for some time and the publisher makes a conscious decision to reissue it or again make it available for download, a republication has occurred. Id., 97 Cal.Rptr.3d 798, 213 P.3d at 143 (Werdegar, J., concurring). Roberts does not allege that McAfee took either step here. It did not issue an altered version of the press release on its website, or even reissue the press release itself in identical form. Instead, as Roberts concedes, all it did after May 2006 was to continue to host the press release on its website. That kind of inaction is not a republication. See Oja, 440 F.3d at 1132 (hosting concerns technical maintenance rather than the particularized and original effort involved in publishing information to an audience); Christoff, 97 Cal.Rptr.3d 798, 213 P.3d at 143 (Werdegar, J., concurring) (Where the publisher has set up a more or less automated system for printing and distributing an item or for downloading it in digital form and does not make a separate publishing decision as to each copy or small batch of copies, to call each such distribution a new `issue' of the material would defeat the purposes of the single publication rule.); see also Traditional Cat Ass'n, 13 Cal.Rptr.3d at 362 ([T]he need to protect Web publishers from almost perpetual liability for statements they make available to the hundreds of millions of people who have access to the Internet is greater even than the need to protect the publishers of conventional hard copy newspapers, magazines and books.). Roberts contends that, at the very least, the district court should have allowed him to take discovery, pursuant to Rule 56(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, [8] concerning McAfee's alleged republication of the defamatory press release. But this rule requires discovery only where the non-moving party has not had the opportunity to discover information that is essential to its opposition. Metabolife Int'l, Inc. v. Wornick, 264 F.3d 832, 846 (9th Cir.2001) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250 n. 5, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)). Roberts' motion sought discovery into McAfee's awareness of the falsity of the press release and the decision to maintain it on the company's publicly available website following Roberts'[] acquittal. Such evidence was not essential to Roberts' opposition; it would not affect the statute of limitations analysis under California's single-publication rule. The district court therefore acted well within its discretion in denying the motion. See Getz v. Boeing Co., 654 F.3d 852, 868 (9th Cir.2011) (affirming under abuse-of-discretion standard the denial of a Rule 56(f) discovery motion where the party failed to `proffer sufficient facts to show that the evidence sought exist[ed], and that it would [have] prevent[ed] summary judgment.' (quoting Blough v. Holland Realty, Inc., 574 F.3d 1084, 1091 n. 5 (9th Cir.2009))). Because Roberts' defamation and false light claims were not brought within one year of the initial publication of the press release, they are time-barred, and the district court rightly struck them.