Opinion ID: 1232103
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: What Constitutes Actual Malice to Defeat a Qualified Privilege

Text: Although the question of whether a qualified privilege is abused is ordinarily a matter for the jury, in this case the district court ruled, as a matter of law, that Nickolas had not abused the privilege. As a consequence, the district court dismissed the plaintiffs' defamation action. The arguments of the parties on this issue largely center upon whether Nickolas's statements were made with actual malice. The defendants assert that a showing of actual malice to defeat their qualified privilege requires proof Nickolas acted with ill-will or wrongful motive. The district court adopted this definition of actual malice, and dismissed the plaintiffs' defamation claim because there was no evidence in the record to support a finding of wrongful motive. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, contend the correct definition of actual malice in this context is a knowing or reckless disregard for the truth. Unfortunately, support for both definitions can be found in our precedents. The defendants cite Winckel, in which we defined actual malice as ill-will, hatred or desire to do another harm. 652 N.W.2d at 459 (citations omitted). Such is the old common law wrongful motive definition of actual malice, which we have long but somewhat inconsistently applied to determine whether a defendant has abused a qualified privilege. See, e.g., Caveman Adventures UN, Ltd. v. Press-Citizen Co., 633 N.W.2d 757, 761 (Iowa 2001); Marks v. Estate of Hartgerink, 528 N.W.2d 539, 546 (Iowa 1995); Robert's River Rides, Inc. v. Steamboat Dev. Corp., 520 N.W.2d 294, 304 (Iowa 1994); Haldeman v. Total Petroleum, Inc., 376 N.W.2d 98, 103-04 (Iowa 1985); Salinger v. Cowles, 195 Iowa 873, 890, 191 N.W. 167, 174 (1922); Cherry v. Des Moines Leader, 114 Iowa 298, 300, 86 N.W. 323, 323 (1901). See generally McNulty, 44 Drake L.Rev. at 666 (cataloguing various manifestations of common law definition of actual malice in Iowa, and concluding a publication otherwise conditionally privileged will remain so if the defendant publishes the statement for the honest purpose of furthering the underlying interest; if, however, the communication is published to satisfy other motives or purposes, most often to gratify a feeling of ill-will or personal spite toward the plaintiff, it will not be protected). [5] The plaintiffs, on the other hand, cite our decision in Taggart v. Drake University, in which we stated [a]ctual malice [also] occurs when a statement is made with knowledge that it is false or with reckless disregard for its truth or falsity. 549 N.W.2d 796, 804 (Iowa 1996) (citations omitted). This is the definition of actual malice developed by the United States Supreme Court in New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964) and its progeny; unlike the common law definition of actual malice, New York Times actual malice focuses upon the attitudes of defendants vis-à-vis the truth of their statements, as opposed to their attitudes towards plaintiffs. Price v. Viking Penguin, Inc., 881 F.2d 1426, 1433 (8th Cir.1989); 1 Robert D. Sack, Sack on Defamation § 9.3.2, at 9-39 (3d ed.1999). A plaintiff must prove New York Times actual malice in cases involving special federal constitutional restraints upon defamation law, irrespective of whether the defendant asserts a qualified privilege. See Caveman Adventures, 633 N.W.2d at 761-62 (discussing difference between the two definitions of actual malice). See generally 2 Dan B. Dobbs, The Law of Torts §§ 417-20, at 1169-87 (2001) (explaining development of constitutional restraints upon defamation law) [hereinafter Dobbs]. Because Taggart was not decided upon First Amendment grounds, reference to the New York Times definition of actual malice in Taggart was improper. McNulty, 44 Drake L.Rev. at 717 n. 752 ( Taggart involved a misapplication of the New York Times actual malice test); see Mercer, 308 F.3d at 849 (the Supreme Court of Iowa seemed to merge the two tests when it stated that actual malice defeating the qualified privilege defense `occurs when a statement is made with knowledge that it is false or with reckless disregard for its truth or falsity' (quoting Taggart, 549 N.W.2d at 804)); see also Herbert v. Lando, 441 U.S. 153, 199, 99 S.Ct. 1635, 1660-61, 60 L.Ed.2d 115, 148 (1979) (Stewart, J., dissenting) (Although I joined the Court's opinion in New York Times, I have come greatly to regret the use in that opinion of the phrase actual malice.... In common understanding, malice means ill will or hostility....). Because the parties in the case at bar likewise do not assert that the federal constitution requires the plaintiffs to prove New York Times malice, i.e., a knowing or reckless disregard of the truth, the plaintiffs' reliance upon this language in Taggart is, strictly speaking, misplaced. [6] With the issue of which definition to apply now squarely before us, however, a review of the current state of the law in this area reveals there is merit in the plaintiffs' claim as a matter of evolving common law doctrine. For the reasons which we will now explain, we discard the old common law wrongful motive standard, and adopt  by analogy  the New York Times knowing or reckless disregard definition of actual malice as the standard to be applied to determine whether a defendant has abused a qualified privilege. Cf. Delaney, 675 N.W.2d at 840 (recognizing Supreme Court adopted New York Times test by analogy  as opposed to constitutional compulsion  in balancing the interests in free speech afforded by the National Labor Relations Act in labor disputes against the reputational interests of the defamed). As one noted commentator has observed, [i]n several cases the influence of the Supreme Court decisions on constitutional privilege has had its effect [upon the common law], and it has been held that there is `[actual] malice' only if the publication is known to be false, or is in reckless disregard of the truth. Prosser on Torts § 115, at 835 n. 23. The highest courts of a number of jurisdictions have held that a knowing or reckless disregard for the truth on the part of the defendant  and not wrongful motive  must be shown to defeat a qualified privilege. See, e.g., Marchesi v. Franchino, 283 Md. 131, 387 A.2d 1129, 1133-34 (1978); Rice v. Hodapp, 919 S.W.2d 240, 244 (Mo.1996); Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. O'Neil, 456 S.W.2d 896, 900-01 (Tex.1970); Bender v. City of Seattle, 99 Wash.2d 582, 664 P.2d 492, 504-05 (1983); see also Smock v. Nolan, 361 F.3d 367, 372 (7th Cir.2004) (applying Illinois law); Rockwood Bank v. Gaia, 170 F.3d 833, 840 (8th Cir.1999) (applying Missouri law); Duffy v. Leading Edge Prods., Inc., 44 F.3d 308, 313 (5th Cir.1995) (applying Texas law); De Leon v. Saint Joseph Hosp., Inc., 871 F.2d 1229, 1238 (4th Cir.1989) (applying Maryland law). [7] We follow these courts: to defeat a qualified privilege, a plaintiff must prove the defendant acted with knowing or reckless disregard of the truth of the statement. Critics of the old common law test have pointed out that it no longer makes sense to base the defeasibility of qualified privileges on an inquiry into the motives of the publisher. In the post- New York Times era, [t]he law of defamation will evolve much more coherently if ill-will malice is discarded altogether, and the knowing or reckless disregard of the truth standard is used for all conditional privileges.... There are at least two grounds to support this unified standard. First, because the purpose of a common law privilege is to protect speech that furthers interests to which the law attaches special importance, it should not matter whether the speaker acts out of ill will if the speech furthers those interests, as long as the speaker does not know the statements are false, and does not recklessly disregard indications of their falsity.... The second reason for unifying constitutional and common law malice standards is simplicity. Constitutional and common law privileges often coexist in the same case, and the existence of more than one definition of malice can only bewilder juries (and possibly the judges and lawyers who try to explain the differences to them). Rather than maintain diverging standards in the part-constitutional, part-common law field of defamation, one comprehensive standard should be established whenever possible, so that neither plaintiffs nor defendants can unfairly exploit ambiguity and confusion. Requiring the plaintiff to allege and prove actual malice  knowing or reckless disregard for the truth of the statement  in cases protected by conditional privileges would both restore the hierarchy of specially protected types of speech that the common law has traditionally recognized and help to clear up the confusion in defamation law by the adoption of a unified standard for the rebuttal of both constitutional and common law conditional privileges. Rodney A. Smolla, Let the Author Beware: The Rejuvenation of the American Law of Libel, 132 U. Pa. L.Rev. 1, 78-81 (1983) [hereinafter Smolla]; John J. Watkins & Charles W. Schwartz, Gertz and the Common Law of Defamation: Of Fault, Nonmedia Defendants, and Conditional Privileges, 15 Tex. Tech. L.Rev. 823, 882-883 (1984) (abandoning common law definition of actual malice avoid [s] potential problems of a jury blending fault and motivational concepts....); cf. McNulty, 44 Drake L.Rev. at 718 (because [e]vidence of the attitude of a defendant toward a plaintiff, without more, would allow juries the freedom to punish unpopular speech and unpopular defendants, consequently deterring freedom of speech ... improper purpose ... should not be employed as a substantive and dispositive legal standard). The old common law improper motive test is also anachronistic. In early cases of slander, the purpose of courts was to punish sinful states of mind or to punish political enemies. Dobbs § 416, at 1167. As a result, it made sense to adopt a system under which a publisher could be liable even if he believed reasonably that he was publishing the truth and even if he published under a privilege, since his personal animus would destroy the privilege. Id. Because such justifications are no longer persuasive, the old common law wrongful motive definition of actual malice is a vestigial relic which must be abolished. See Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Path of the Law, 10 Harv. L.Rev. 457, 469 (1897) (It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.). We remain mindful of the importance of stare decisis as a force of stability and predictability in the law. Where persuasive reasons no longer support a discrete common law rule, however, we are not required to fetter ourselves to that rule simply for the sake of preserving past decisions. See Shook v. Crabb, 281 N.W.2d 616, 617 (Iowa 1979) (An appellate court would be remiss in its duties if it did not from time to time reexamine the analysis underlying its precedents.); see also State v. Liddell, 672 N.W.2d 805, 813 (Iowa 2003). Thankfully, the common law in Iowa is not the common law of ancient England: times change, and the law must evolve to meet the demands of the present day. In sum, we abandon the old common law improper purpose definition of actual malice in favor of the New York Times test, which focuses upon whether the defendant published the statement with a knowing or reckless disregard of its truth. [8] Turning to the facts of the case, we cannot say, as a matter of law, that Nickolas published his statements about The Factory without actual malice, i.e. without a knowing or reckless disregard for the truth. As indicated, this is ordinarily a matter for the jury, and in order to prevail on summary judgment the defendants must show there is no genuine issue of material fact that Nickolas abused the qualified privilege. There is sufficient evidence to show he acted with a knowing or reckless disregard for the truth. As we stated in Caveman Adventures, reckless conduct is not measured by whether a reasonably prudent man would have published, or would have investigated before publishing. There must be sufficient evidence to permit the conclusion that the defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of his publication.... [T]he actual malice standard require[s] a high degree of awareness of ... probable falsity. 633 N.W.2d at 762 (quoting St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U.S. 727, 731, 88 S.Ct. 1323, 1325, 20 L.Ed.2d 262, 267 (1968) and Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64, 74, 85 S.Ct. 209, 216, 13 L.Ed.2d 125, 135 (1964)). In this case, Nickolas published the allegation to the public with no basis other than an anonymous and uncorroborated tip. Although a failure to investigate, standing alone, ordinarily will not establish a knowing or reckless disregard for the truth, [p]rofessions of good faith will be unlikely to prove persuasive ... where a story is ... based wholly on an unverified anonymous telephone call. St. Amant, 390 U.S. at 732, 88 S.Ct. at 1326, 20 L.Ed.2d at 267-68 (emphasis added). Moreover, portions of Nickolas's statement before the council arguably show he entertained serious doubts about the truth of the phone call. We cannot say, as a matter of law, that Nickolas did not act with actual malice. Summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the defamation claim was not proper.