Opinion ID: 1601643
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the essential elements of libel: defamatory meaning and falsity.

Text: Michigan law has traditionally defined a defamatory communication as one which `tends so to harm the reputation of [persons so] as to lower [them] in the estimation of the community or to deter [others] from associating or dealing with [them].' Nuyen v Slater, 372 Mich 654, 662, n []; 127 NW2d 369 (1964). A cause of action for libel encompasses four components: 1) a false and defamatory statement concerning the plaintiff, 2) an unprivileged communication to a third party, 3) fault amounting to at least negligence on the part of the publisher, and 4) either actionability of the statement irrespective of special harm or the existence of special harm caused by publication. A cause of action for libel requires a plaintiff to show defamatory meaning as well as falsity, fault, and publication. Michigan law has also long recognized that the regime of libel law may not impose damages for injuries to reputation arising from a press report of materially true facts about a public figure on a matter of public interest. In Sanders v Evening News Ass'n, supra at 337, a former judge of the Common Pleas Court sued the Detroit News for two newspaper articles that exposed `the problem of overnight releases of persons arrested for misdemeanors  releases made by the police at the telephoned request of judges.' Both articles reported an incident where the plaintiff personally intervened to order the release of a person held in custody at a police station. The first article reported that `former Judge Joseph Sanders walked into Bethune Station one night, banged his gavel on the startled sergeant's desk and shouted: `Court's in session, the Honorable Joseph Sanders presiding. Bring in Joe Doakes!' Id. at 339. The second article, appearing the following day, stated that `[there has almost always] been a judge or two, bound to a bondsman or lawyer either by affection or campaign contribution, or overimpressed by judicial prerogatives, who has turned the order (of the head of the police department not to release on telephone request) into a farce. Witness the case of ... the impromptu court session held in Bethune Station by former Judge Joseph Sanders.' Id. The Sanders Court reviewed the record and concluded that no liability existed for the first article because in his amended declaration plaintiff admits the truth of the ... publication in so far as it could possibly tend to support an action for libel. Since that publication was true, it was not libelous. Id. at 340. The Court then reviewed the substance of the second article, under the venerable principle 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....' Id. The Court first held that the plaintiff lacked authority to hold court in a police station to release a prisoner, and therefore had acted in his private, not official capacity. It concluded that [i]n doing so plaintiff acted without lawful authority and it was not libelous for defendants to publish an article to that effect ... [f]urther, it was not libelous to say in the alternative of plaintiff `or (he was) over-impressed by judicial prerogatives' since such appears to be the truth from plaintiff's own pleading. Id. at 342-343. The logic of Sanders, while instructive, does not foreclose every cause of action for defamation by implication. However, the Sanders rationale does prohibit imposing liability on a media defendant for facts it publishes accurately and without material factual omissions about public affairs.