Opinion ID: 4018581
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: reasonable probability of prevailing on the

Text: MERITS To prevail, Manzari will eventually need to present clear and convincing evidence that the Daily Mail article contained a defamatory implication and that the Daily Mail acted with “actual malice” when it published the article with her photograph. See Kaelin v. Globe Comm. Corp., 162 F.3d 1036, 1039 (9th Cir. 1998) (“A public figure in a defamation case cannot recover unless he proves by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant published the defamatory statement with actual malice, i.e., with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).2 However, at the anti-SLAPP stage, “[a] public figure who sues for defamation must establish a probability that he or she can produce such clear and convincing evidence.” Overstock.com, 61 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 38 (emphasis added); see also Burrill v. Nair, 158 Cal. Rptr. 3d 332, 357 (Ct. App. 2013) (“[W]e must determine [at the anti-SLAPP stage] whether [the Plaintiff] has made a sufficient prima facie showing of facts to sustain her burden of demonstrating a high probability that [the Defendant] published the defamatory statements with knowledge of their falsity or while entertaining serious doubts as to their truth.”). 2 It is uncontested that Manzari was not the actual subject of the article and the Daily Mail has not presented truth as a defense. MANZARI V. ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS 15 At this juncture in the proceedings, Manzari is not required to “to prove the specified claim,” Mann, 15 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 223 (internal quotation marks omitted). She need only convince us that her claim has “minimal merit,” and she has done so. Overstock.com, 61 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 38. We agree that Manzari has presented sufficient evidence—both as to the article’s defamatory implication and the Daily Mail’s actual malice—to survive the anti-SLAPP motion to strike.
The Daily Mail did not affirmatively state that Manzari was the performer with HIV, but the implication and the conclusion were neither subtle nor difficult to divine. The bold headline and its content, juxtaposed with her photograph and yet another caption under her picture that said the industry was “shocked” that a “performer had tested HIV positive,” was sufficient for a reasonable reader to infer that Manzari was the performer who had tested positive for HIV. California law recognizes that a defamatory statement can be either “expressly stated or implied.” Forsher v. Bugliosi, 608 P.2d 716, 721 (Cal. 1980) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Thus: “If the defendant juxtaposes a series of facts so as to imply a defamatory connection between them, or otherwise creates a defamatory implication, he may be held responsible for the defamatory implication, even though the particular facts are correct.” Weller v. Am. Broad. Co., 283 Cal. Rptr. 644, 652 n.10 (Ct. App. 1991) (quoting Prosser, 16 MANZARI V. ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS The Law of Torts § 116 (5th ed. Supp. 1988)) (internal alterations omitted). To state a claim for implied defamation, however, the published statement must reasonably “be understood as implying the alleged defamatory content.” Id. at 651 n.8. Price v. Stossel, 620 F.3d 992, 1003 (9th Cir. 2010). Of course we “must examine the totality of the circumstances of the publication.” Kaelin, 162 F.3d at 1041. “[A] defamatory meaning must be found, if at all, in a reading of the publication as a whole.” Id. at 1040. The Daily Mail suggests this case is different from the classic defamation by implication case because it did not make any statement by including a stock photograph selected as a “good, nonobscene photograph to illustrate the article.” This disingenuous approach overlooks the fact that a photograph itself can convey both an implicit and an explicit message and that the headline, caption and photograph taken together are also a statement. As the Supreme Court observed in a similar context, “words and punctuation express meaning. Meaning is the life of language.” Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U.S. 496, 517 (1991); see also id. at 521 (concluding that misquotations of a public figure, implying he had stated things he did not say, raised a triable jury question). Likewise, a visual depiction can be the life of expression. Considering the article as a whole, we conclude that a reasonable reader could infer that the article is about Manzari. The headline begins “Porn industry shuts down after ‘female performer’ tests positive for HIV,” which is followed by just four sentences before her photograph. The picture includes MANZARI V. ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS 17 her professional name “Danni” in neon lights behind her and the bold caption below her reads “Moratorium: The porn industry in California was shocked on Wednesday by the announcement that a performer had tested HIV positive.” The vague references to the unidentified “female performer” do not clarify that the article is not about Manzari, particularly given the size and placement of the photographs and text. The clarity of the implication is all the more apparent given how news spreads across the Internet. As Daily Mail Online—a leader and professional in online publishing—would no doubt be aware, links to news articles frequently appear in online search engines or other compilations with only a headline and photograph connected to that story. Publication of the first story was just a platform for inevitable further online dissemination. Manzari introduced multiple screen-shots from the Internet revealing how the article appeared in a number of search engines and other on-line news platforms. These images spread rapidly across the Web once the Daily Mail Online published the article, and, in example after example, the posting is truncated with the headline followed directly by the “Danni” photograph, sometimes including a caption, but without the rest of the article to provide any further context for the image. The Daily Mail contends that the text of the article—specifically its assertion that the performer in question was new to the industry and had not been identified—is logically inconsistent with the inference that the actress in question was Manzari. It underscores that the explanatory text appears on the same page as the headline and the photograph of Manzari, such that a reasonable reader would realize that she was not the woman who had tested 18 MANZARI V. ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS positive for HIV. In this regard, the Kaelin case is instructive. There we held that: “headlines are not irrelevant, extraneous, or liability-free zones[, t]hey are essential elements of a publication,” and that false insinuations in a headline on the cover page were not cured or negated by explanatory language later in the magazine because “[a] reasonable juror could conclude that the Kaelin article was too far removed from the cover headline to have the salutary effect that Globe claims.” 162 F.3d at 1040–41; see also Davis v. Hearst, 160 Cal. 143, 187 (1911) (holding that an article’s explanatory text did not negate the defamatory nature of the headline). The same is true here. A passing reference buried in the article can hardly cure the obvious message conveyed by the headline, photo and caption. Manzari has presented sufficient evidence to carry her burden of showing a reasonable probability of success on the merits regarding the first prong of her defamation claim.
The Supreme Court has provided a framework through which we assess whether a public figure can move forward with a defamation claim. In Masson, the Court explained that “actual malice” presents a question of fact: “The constitutional question we must consider here is whether, in the framework of a summary judgment motion, the evidence suffices to show that respondents acted with the requisite knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard as to truth or falsity.” 501 U.S. at 513. The Court concluded that “[t]he record contains substantial . . . evidence, . . . which, in a light most favorable to petitioner, would support a jury determination under a clear and convincing standard that [the MANZARI V. ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS 19 author acted] deliberately or recklessly.” Id. at 521. Although the author “contests petitioner’s allegations, . . . only a trial on the merits will resolve the factual dispute. . . . [A]t this stage, the evidence creates a jury question whether [the author] published the statements with knowledge or reckless disregard of the alterations.” Id. In implied defamation cases, “where a statement . . . reasonably implies false and defamatory facts regarding public figures or officials, those individuals must show that such statements were made with knowledge of their false implications or with reckless disregard of their truth.” Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 20 (1990). “[R]eckless 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.” Time, Inc. v. Pape, 401 U.S. 279, 291–92 (1971). This standard ensures that publishers are not held liable for unintentional misstatements or implications, which public figures later claim are defamatory. See Howard v. Antilla, 294 F.3d 244, 252 (1st Cir. 2002) (“[I]mplications perceived in a statement but not intended by the speaker cannot be actionable in public official or public figure cases.”) (quoting Robert D. Sack, Libel, Slander, and Related Problems § 5.5.1, at 5–64 (3d ed. 1999)).3 3 Our sister circuits have also adopted a standard of subjective awareness of the implication. See Compuware Corp. v. Moody’s Inv’rs Servs., Inc., 499 F.3d 520, 529 (6th Cir. 2007) (defendant must have intended or knew of the implied meaning); Levan v. Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., 190 F.3d 1230, 1241 (11th Cir. 1999) (to show actual malice in an implied defamation case, the plaintiff must show that the defendant “entertained serious doubts” that the “underlying thrust” of the publication was true 20 MANZARI V. ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS Defamation by implication against public figures is an area of law “fraught with subtle complexities.” White, 909 F.2d at 518. We have not always charted a clear path when applying the actual malice test to implied defamatory content. Compare Hoffman v. Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., 255 F.3d 1180, 1187 (9th Cir. 2001) (“evidence must clearly and convincingly demonstrate that [the publisher] knew (or purposefully avoided knowing) that the photograph would mislead its readers”), with Newton v. Nat’l Broad. Co., 930 F.2d 662, 680–81 (9th Cir. 1990) (holding that failure to foresee the possible implications of a statement does not give rise to liability against a public figure, rather the relevant inquiry is one of subjective intent) and, Dodds v. Am. Broad. Co., 145 F.3d 1053, 1063–64 (9th Cir. 1998) (“In order to prevail on his claim that ABC’s direct statements impliedly defamed him . . . [the plaintiff] must show . . . that ABC intended to convey the defamatory impression.” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). Although our cases have referenced actual malice with some variation in language, at its core our precedent mirrors the Supreme Court’s requirements: knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. (internal quotation marks omitted)); White v. Fraternal Order of Police, 909 F.2d 512, 520 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (defamation by implication possible where “the communication, by the particular manner or language in which the true facts are conveyed, supplies additional, affirmative evidence suggesting that the defendant intends or endorses the defamatory inference”); Saenz v. Playboy Enter., Inc., 841 F.2d 1309, 1318 (7th Cir. 1988) (“[W]here the plaintiff is claiming defamation by innuendo, he also must show with clear and convincing evidence that the defendants intended or knew of the implications that the plaintiff is attempting to draw from the allegedly defamatory material.”). MANZARI V. ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS 21 This case rests on the “reckless disregard” prong of actual malice. Recognizing that California law requires only “minimal merit” to withstand initial dismissal under the antiSLAPP statute, we hold that Manzari has raised sufficient factual questions for a jury to conclude that the Daily Mail Online acted with reckless disregard for the defamatory implication in its article on the Los Angeles porn industry shut-down. Manzari’s evidence is sufficient to support her claim that the Daily Mail Online placed her photograph in the article, juxtaposed with the incendiary headline and caption, “[knowing or acting] in reckless disregard of whether its words would be interpreted by the average reader as a false statement of fact.” Solano, 292 F.3d at 1084 (internal citations, alterations, and quotation marks omitted). The undisputed message that the article is about Manzari—apparent from the headline, photograph, and caption—supports the conclusion that the Daily Mail Online acted with reckless disregard. Though it is not enough that the defamatory implication “should have been foreseen” by the Daily Mail when it juxtaposed the different elements of the article, see Newton, 930 F.2d at 680, or that an “ordinary viewer would have perceived the implication,” Dodds, 145 F.3d at 1064, here there is evidence that Daily Mail employees actively removed key contextual information from the “Danni Ashe” photograph as it was presented in the Corbis database, which stated: “Soft porn actress Danni Ashe, founder of Danni.com, poses in front of a video camera connected to the Internet in one of her studios in Los Angeles in 2000.” Instead, they replaced this information with the caption: “Moratorium: The porn industry in California was shocked on Wednesday by the announcement that a performer had tested HIV positive.” The publishers also failed to include any explanation or disclaimer adjacent to the 22 MANZARI V. ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS “Danni” photograph, which would have informed readers that she was not the subject of the article. See Eastwood, 123 F.3d at 1253, 1256 (observing that “[a]s we have yet to see a defendant who admits to entertaining serious subjective doubt about the authenticity of an article it published, we must be guided by circumstantial evidence,” and concluding that the “totality of the [editors’] choices” supported a finding of actual malice). It is no surprise that the Daily Mail employees deny that they understood or intended to make any implication about Manzari. While a finding that the publisher’s testimony lacks credibility cannot on its own sustain a finding of subjective intent, Newton, 930 F.2d at 680, the denial must be read in the context of other evidence. If all a publisher needed to do was to deny the allegation, all implied defamation suits would be dead on arrival. If, for instance, a newspaper ran the headline: “High Profile Figure Accused of Murder” alongside a photograph of the Mayor of New York, or “Industry Shocked that Grocery Sprayed Veggies with Pesticide” alongside an image of a nationally-known grocery chain, the publishers would be hard-pressed to plausibly claim that they had simply selected a “stock” photograph. The same holds true for a story about the pornography industry, featuring a picture of a world-famous pornographic actress with her name written in neon lights behind her.4 This sort of willful blindness cannot immunize publishers where they act with reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the implication they are making. Manzari meets the “minimal merit” threshold to avoid outright dismissal of her complaint. 4 One need only look to the Daily Mail’s own evidence of Manzari’s public figure status to confirm the ubiquity of her image and her identity. Her image can hardly be relegated to the status of a “stock” photograph. MANZARI V. ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS 23