Opinion ID: 1443950
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Court of Chancery's Declaration

Text: The Court of Chancery held that the advertisements did not violate Subsection VI(h)'s ban on personal attacks. The court further held that the advertisements did not vilify any person or company, either individually or collectively. To define vilify in the context of the MSA, the Court of Chancery did not use any dictionary. While the court referenced the parties' own usage of dictionary definitions as one of the means to define vilify, it expressly declined to do so in this case. [4] The court explained, that although dictionary definitions are helpful and instructive, they are not precedent and this court need not rely on them, especially when, as in this case, there are sufficient usages in legal opinions to inform the court as to whether the advertisements in question violate the MSA. [5] The Vice Chancellor then looked to a variety of sources including Delaware court decisions, [6] United States Supreme Court decisions, [7] federal court decisions, [8] and other legal sources. [9] After reviewing a wide range of legal sources, the Vice Chancellor distilled a definition of vilify from the uses of the words by the particular authors of these writings. He concluded that: the state and federal case law, as well as law reviews, support a view of vilification that is consistent with Delaware law. First, on a textual level, the words of vilification are stronger than disparagement. Second, on a contextual level the term vilification is most often used to describe situations that implicate serious social issues, such as race or gender relations. While the overwhelming majority of legal sources show a consistent use of vilification that is stronger than mere disparagement and frequently vilification is used in serious social contexts, there are a small minority of cases that appear to use vilify in a watered-down manner. . . . [10] The Vice Chancellor placed primary reliance on Delaware court decisions using the word vilification concluding that: Delaware courts have used vilification in conjunction with words like blasphemy, licentiousness, hatred, contempt, and ridicule. Vilification has also been used in two related cases that concerned an alleged fraud by swindlers who perhaps should have been put in jail. From these sources, it is clear that Delaware law regards vilification as stronger ( i.e. more contemptuous or malicious) than disparaging someone. [11] He then incorporated factors into this high threshold that included the truthfulness of the advertisements and their tone and concluded that the advertisements at issue did not violate Subsection VI(h)'s ban on vilifying persons or companies. To define personal attack the Vice Chancellor again looked to uses of this term by authors in sources other than dictionaries as he did with his analysis of vilify. He noted that some courts have used personal attack in three distinct legal contexts: referring to 1) physical violence; 2) courtroom behavior; and 3) communications that occur outside of the courtroom. [12] He adopted the third category of personal attack, for his analysis in this case. After recognizing the scarcity of personal attack cases in both Delaware and United States Supreme Court jurisprudence, [13] the Vice Chancellor noted that federal courts use the phrase `personal attack' when categorizing statements that include comparing people to terminal illnesses or alleging that they are criminals. [14] In other words, the authors of both federal and state case decisions use personal attack to mean more than mere criticism. The Vice Chancellor concluded: [T]he term personal in the MSA's personal attack consists of two parts. The first part concerns the target's private characteristics, such as, for an individual, amorality. The second part concerns the specific identification of the target. Case law clearly supports the interpretation that the target must be identified. The court finds that such identification must be specific to a particular person or company. Calling the tobacco companies the tobacco industry or Big Tobacco does not identify the signatories to the MSA in a specific enough manner to be violative of Section VI(h) of the MSA. Lorillard could have, but did not, achieve a broader prohibition in the MSA by referring to Big Tobacco or the tobacco industry specifically. It did not, and there is no reason to suppose that the 46 attorneys general would ever have agreed to such language. [15] Applying this definition of personal attack, he stated that Lorillard had the burden of demonstrating that there was an attack and that the attack was personal on it specifically. The Vice Chancellor found that advertisements did not violate the personal attack provision of Subsection VI(h). With respect to the email-generating server managed by ALF, he found that the emails did constitute personal attacks but declined to award any damages or injunctive relief because the violation was de minimis. [16]