Opinion ID: 1601643
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the trial court and court of appeals denials of summary judgment.

Text: The plaintiffs' original and subsequent amended complaints alleged [t]hat by the entire tenor of these publications, Defendants acted in reckless disregard of the falsity of their publications and said ... that Plaintiffs Locricchio and Francell were persons engaged in organized crime and engaged in a continuing course of criminal misconduct or conduct of an immoral or reprehensible nature in both their personal and business relationships. The plaintiffs' complaints did not identify a single false statement that appeared in the Pine Knob articles. The defendants moved for summary judgment before trial. They contended that the absence of allegations of specific false statements in the complaint negated any issue of material fact. The trial court denied the motion. Rebuked by the denial of summary judgment, the defendants countered with a number of interrogatories that asked the defendants to identify each alleged false statement in the Pine Knob series. The plaintiffs responded tersely: [T]he defamation allegations contained [in the complaint] are not necessarily based on a false statement(s) in any one particular article, but rather, ... the entire series of articles ... injured the reputations of plaintiffs as the same represented a false portrayal, implication, imputation and/or insinuation.... Unsatisfied with this response, the defendants once again moved for summary judgment on the plaintiffs' libel claims, rearguing that no genuine issue of material fact existed because of the failure of the plaintiffs to allege any specific false statements of fact. Once again, the trial court disagreed, and denied defendant's summary judgment motion. The Court of Appeals granted leave on interlocutory appeal to resolve the issue and issued its opinion in August 1983. [8] The Court of Appeals rejected the argument that the absence of specific allegations of false statements of fact mandated dismissal on summary judgment. The Court of Appeals relied on three cases to reach this conclusion: Sanders v Evening News Ass'n, 313 Mich 334, 340; 21 NW2d 152 (1946), Caldwell v Crowell-Collier Publishing Co, 161 F2d 333, 335-336 (CA 5, 1947), cert den 332 US 766 (1947), and Memphis Publishing Co v Nichols, 569 SW2d 412, 419-420 (Tenn, 1978). From Sanders, the Court of Appeals extracted the maxim that `[t]o test its libelous quality, a publication is to be considered as a whole, including the character of the display of its headlines when the article is published in a newspaper, and the language employed therein.' Id. at 340. From Caldwell and Nichols, the Court of Appeals extrapolated the proposition that [i]nsinuation, imputation or inference may be as defamatory as a direct, unveiled assertion. Having thus affirmed the theoretical validity of a cause of action for defamation by implication, the Court of Appeals held that [t]he pleadings have given rise to a genuine issue of material fact which is to be left to the trier of facts and cannot be disposed of by summary judgment, and remanded the case for trial.