Opinion ID: 456334
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: I. Code Ann. tit. 1, Sec. 4 (1967) states:

Text: The rules of the common law, as expressed in the restatements of the law approved by the American Law Institute, and to the extent not so expressed, as generally understood and applied in the United States, shall be the rules of decision in the courts of the Virgin Islands in cases to which they apply, in the absence of local laws to the contrary. Accordingly, defendant's argument that the Virgin Islands civil defamation law is guided by that of New York is incorrect. The source of this misimpression comes from Skeoch v. Ottley, 377 F.2d 804, 810 (3d Cir.1967). After noting that the Virgin Islands has adopted the restatements, the Court in Skeoch, in an offhand manner and as additional support for the Restatement of Torts' substantive position on when a statement is capable of defamatory meaning, stated that the Virgin Islands law of libel looks to that of New York. Id. In support of this proposition, the Reviser's Note to V.I.Code Ann. tit. 14, Sec. 1171 (1964) is cited. That note, however, merely indicates that the Virgin Islands criminal law of libel was being updated to reflect the modern view, and that New York Penal Law Sec. 1340 was being used as the model. Thus while the Virgin Islands criminal libel statute may have been drafted on the basis of its New York counterpart, any reliance on this fact in interpretating the Virgin Islands civil defamation law, which is based on the common law, is misplaced. More importantly, V.I.Code Ann. tit. 1, Sec. 4, quoted above, explicitly adopts the restatements of law as the substantive law of the Virgin Islands. 2 See Restatement (Second) of Torts Secs. 565, 581A (1977). An opinion is generally not defamatory unless it is based upon undisclosed defamatory facts. See Restatement (Second) of Torts Sec. 566 (1977) 3 Restatement (Second) of Torts Sec. 559 (1977) provides that [a] communication is defamatory if it tends so to harm the reputation of another as to lower him in the estimation of the community or to deter third persons from associating or dealing with him. 4 See Restatement (Second) of Torts Secs. 559, 564 (1977) 5 Paiewonsky advances an alternative argument: the proposition that under our holding in Avins v. White, 627 F.2d 637 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 982, 101 S.Ct. 398, 66 L.Ed.2d 244 (1980), a remand is necessary. In that case, we held that where a jury is permitted to base its verdict on both defamatory and non-defamatory statements, the judgment must be vacated and remanded for a new trial limited to remarks that are capable of defamatory meaning. Here, the jury returned a general verdict on Count IV that the broadcast was defamatory. If, as defendant asserts, the jury was permitted to consider certain nonactionable statements, such as opinions, or the disparaging remarks regarding Harding's conflict of interest which are not of and concerning McDowell, Avins arguably requires the case to be remanded. Because of our disposition of the case on public figure grounds, however, we need not reach this contention 6 Whether a statement involves a matter of public concern must be determined by its  'content, form, and context.... as revealed by the whole record.'  Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., --- U.S. ----, ----, 105 S.Ct. 2939, 2947, 86 L.Ed.2d 593 (1985) (plurality opinion) (quoting Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 147-48, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 1690-91, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983)) 7 See Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 87 S.Ct. 1975, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967); Chuy, 595 F.2d at 1265; Barry, 584 F.Supp. at 1113 8 This case does not raise the issue whether a truly involuntary public figure can exist. See Gertz, 418 U.S. at 351, 94 S.Ct. at 3012; Note, The Involuntary Public Figure Class of Gertz v. Robert Welch: Dead or Merely Dormant?, 14 U.Mich.J.L.Ref. 71 (1980)