Opinion ID: 1505898
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Instruct on Substantial Truth.

Text: At trial, WHAS tendered jury instructions that would have required the jury to determine whether each of the alleged defamatory statements was substantially true. Instead, the trial court instructed the jury to return a verdict for Kentucky Kingdom if it found that the statements were false. As previously noted, the First Amendment precludes a defamation judgment against a media defendant premised upon statements that were substantially true. Haynes v. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 8 F.3d 1222, 1228 (7th Cir.1993) (The rule making substantial truth a complete defense and the constitutional limitations on defamation suits coincide.). Truth, in the context of a defamation action, has a particular meaning, i.e., substantially true, not literally true. [W]e have found error in the failure to define terms when the law ascribes a particular meaning or when a common term is used as a term of art. McKinney v. Heisel, 947 S.W.2d 32, 34 (Ky.1997). See also Blair v. Eblen, 461 S.W.2d 370, 373 (Ky.1970); Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Shemwell, 273 Ky. 264, 116 S.W.2d 328, 331 (1938); Commonwealth Life Ins. Co. v. Ovesen, 257 Ky. 622, 78 S.W.2d 745, 746 (1935). The majority disregards this requirement on the basis of our well-known preference for bare bones instructions. Ante, at 792. However, even bare bones instructions must contain an accurate and complete statement of the law; otherwise, the jury cannot properly apply the law to the facts of the case. Risen v. Pierce, 807 S.W.2d 945, 947-48 (Ky.1991). In Guccione v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 800 F.2d 298, 301-02 (2nd Cir.1986), the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit approved the district court's first instruction to the jury, viz: If the statement is true or substantially true, it cannot be libelous. It's not necessary of course that a statement be literally true. Id. at 301. However, the Court found a subsequent instruction to be erroneous because it improperly permitted the jury to disregard the substantial truth defense. Id. at 302. See also Orr v. Argus-Press Co., 586 F.2d 1108, 1112 (6th Cir.1978) (First, as the District Court instructed the jury, the article is not libelous if substantially true. `To be true,' the Court correctly stated, `it is not essential that the literal truth be established in every detail as long as the article contains the gist of the truth as ordinarily understood.'). In the case sub judice, the Court of Appeals correctly held that it was reversible error for the trial court to refuse to instruct the jury that truth means substantial truth. Cf. Harte-Hanks Communications, 491 U.S. at 667 n. 7, 109 S.Ct. at 2685 n. 7 (trial court should instruct jury in such a manner to ensure that New York Times actual malice standard is correctly applied). Under the instructions as given, once a jury was satisfied that the interpretation was `wrong,' the error itself would be sufficient to justify a verdict for the plaintiff. Pape, 401 U.S. at 291, 91 S.Ct. at 640.