Opinion ID: 2362404
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Simpson

Text: The record discloses that as secretary-treasurer of the Rahway Taxpayers Association, Simpson actively participated in the petition drive. He was one of the five-member committee of petitioners whose names appeared on every petition sheet circulated by the Association. Simpson personally collected approximately 250 petition signatures as a result of his door-to-door efforts, and on at least one occasion he wrote a letter to the editor on the issue of the firehouse appropriation. The day the petitions were filed, Simpson notified the Rahway News-Record and requested the presence of a photographer at the delivery. The resulting photograph portraying Simpson, among others, turning over the petitions, was published in the December 31, 1974 issue of the News-Record. Although the factors delineating Simpson's status are less compelling than those relating to Lawrence, we hold that Simpson is also a public figure for the limited purposes of the firehouse appropriation and petition controversies. This conclusion is derived from our close scrutiny of Simpson's activities during the course of the firehouse controversy and the subsequent submission of the petitions. Both lower courts, perhaps because of the much more extensive activity of Lawrence, failed to perceive that Simpson was similarly in the forefront of the controversy. The proper determination of public figure status involves a measuring of the degree of plaintiff's participation in a particular activity, not a relative comparison of the involvement of two separate participants. The analysis focuses on Simpson's relationship to the controversy as a whole. Although his participation was not as extensive as Lawrence's, it far exceeded the role of a private figure.