Opinion ID: 4018581
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: defamatory implication

Text: 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.