Opinion ID: 487723
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Interpretation of the Article

Text: 66 The theme of the November 30, 1979 article was set forth in its headline and lead sentence: that William Tavoulareas set up Peter as a partner in a business managing Mobil-owned ships. Peter, the article reported, had in 1974 been a 24-year-old, $14,000 per year shipping clerk with the Lemos firm, but with the help of Mobil five years later owned 45 percent of a newly formed shipping management firm, Atlas Maritime Co. [T]he overall thrust of the article was that William Tavoulareas improperly set up his son in business and made sure the business would prosper. Reply Brief for Appellant at 21-22; see Brief for Appellant at 70; 567 F.Supp. at 660. 67 Tavoulareas advances several possible defamatory interpretations of this set up allegation. 15 His primary contention, and one adopted by the dissent, Dissent at 820-21, is that [t]he November 30 article was reasonably understood to mean that plaintiff misused Mobil assets by engineering the entire Mobil-Samarco-Atlas arrangement for the benefit of his son, to the detriment of Mobil shareholders. 16 Brief for Appellant at 26 (emphasis added). The District Court squarely rejected as untenable that construction of the article. 567 F.Supp. at 660. We agree. 17 68 In a libel case, it is the role of the court to determine whether the challenged statement is capable of bearing a particular meaning and whether that meaning is defamatory. Restatement (Second) Of Torts Sec. 614(i), at 311 (1977); see McBride v. Merrell Dow and Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 717 F.2d 1460, 1463 (D.C.Cir.1983). In making this determination, a court is to consider both the words themselves and the entire context in which the statement occurs. See Ollman v. Evans, 750 F.2d 970, 982-83 (D.C.Cir.1984) (en banc), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1127, 105 S.Ct. 2662, 86 L.Ed.2d 278 (1985). The jury's proper function, in turn, is to determine whether a statement, held by the court to be capable of a defamatory meaning, was in fact attributed such a meaning by its readers. Restatement (Second) Of Torts Sec. 614(2). 69 The statement that a father set up his son in business would ordinarily mean to a reasonable reader that the father provided the son with the means or opportunity by which the latter could assume a position of responsibility in a business venture or commercial firm. See Webster's Third New International Dictionary 2079 (unabridged ed. 1981). In our view, when the term set up is employed in a familial context, it implies that one family member provided an opportunity to another family member on the basis of kinship, not merit. Accordingly, we hold that the article, as a matter of law, can reasonably be interpreted as capable of bearing a defamatory meaning, namely that Tavoulareas, as president of Mobil, made it possible for Peter to become a partner in Atlas and then helped to ensure that the business would prosper because Peter was his son. This, in our view, is the normal, everyday reading of the article. The headline and lead sentence, generally reliable indicators of an article's content, clearly convey this meaning. 18 This meaning is defamatory in that it accuses Tavoulareas of nepotism--furthering his son's business career--which might tend[ ] to injure [him] in his trade, profession or community standing, or lower him in the estimation of the community. Afro-American Publishing Co. v. Jaffe, 366 F.2d 649, 654 (D.C.Cir.1966) (footnote omitted). 70 As we have observed, Tavoulareas' proffered interpretation is much broader. He (and the dissent) contend that the article is capable of bearing the interpretation that Tavoulareas set up the entire Mobil-Sarmarco-Atlas relationship to benefit Peter. Thus, before passing to a consideration of the falsity vel non of the set up allegation, we first consider this asserted, much different, broader reading. For the reasons that follow, we reject Tavoulareas' construction and interpret the language according to its common usage. As did Judge Gasch, we hold as a matter of law that the article is incapable of bearing the interpretation Tavoulareas advances. 19 71 As the District Court correctly observed, the Post 's allegation that Tavoulareas set up his son in Atlas is entirely different from the claim that the Post asserted that the creation of the entire Mobil-Samarco-Atlas relationship was a nepotistic act. 567 F.Supp. at 660 & n. 16. The article clearly says the former, not the latter. The article simply will not reasonably bear Tavoulareas' interpretation, as evidenced by his failure to cite anything in the article itself to support this reading. See Brief for Appellant at 25-29; Reply Brief for Appellant at 16. 20 Indeed, the article discussed at length Mobil's legitimate business reasons for participating in Samarco, namely its anticipation of Saudi flag preference requirements and favorable Saudi financing. paragraphs 38-44, 51. 72 The dissent ignores the specifics of the article, complaining instead that [t]he entire discussion of the legitimate business reasons in the Post article is perjorative. Dissent at 821. In our view, the dissent's reliance on the tone of the article is entirely misplaced. The article expressly buttressed the credibility of Mobil's stated business reasons for joining Samarco. The story specifically reports that the other non-Saudi partner in Samarco, Fairfield-Maxwell, joined on the basis of the same anticipated benefits. p 43. Needless to say, Fairfield-Maxwell had no interest in participating in Samarco to benefit Peter. Rather, as the article itself reported, Fairfield-Maxwell was of the view that Peter's involvement in Atlas, although nepotistic, would not preclude the successful and profitable operation of Samarco. p 27. We cannot accept the dissent's tortured attempt to discern some dark, hidden meaning in the article when the plain words of the piece explicitly rebut that meaning. 21 73 Tavoulareas relies heavily on internal unpublished Post memoranda to establish the meaning of the article. This will not do. Nothing in law or common sense supports saddling a libel defendant with civil liability for a defamatory implication nowhere to be found in the published article itself. 22 In addition to the internal memoranda, the dissent cites two other items of extrinsic evidence as relevant to a determination of the article's meaning. 23 First, much is made of the public interpretation of the Post article. Dissent at 819 n. 25. Assuming arguendo that such evidence bears on our legal determination, the items earmarked by the dissent are utterly incapable of supporting Tavoulareas' interpretation; if anything, these items support our interpretation of the article. 24 Second, the dissent pounces upon a single passage from the Post 's closing argument at trial and attempts by that maneuver to characterize the Post as in fact accepting Tavoulareas' interpretation of the article. See Dissent at 822-23. 25 This is grasping at straws. From the time the article was published to its appearance before this court en banc, the Post has steadfastly interpreted the article as saying that Peter was set up in Atlas, not that the entire Mobil-Samarco-Atlas arrangement was set up for Peter. 26 This is hardly surprising, for as we have held as a matter of law, the article is incapable of bearing Tavoulareas' and the dissent's distorted interpretation. Because the piece is capable, however, of bearing the narrower but nonetheless defamatory meaning that Tavoulareas set up his son in Atlas, we proceed to consider the truth or falsity of this allegation. 74 Tavoulareas, it should be noted, would pretermit entirely our consideration of truth or falsity, maintaining that the court should not consider the question in reviewing the jury verdict in his favor. Brief for Appellant at 17a-17b. We emphatically disagree. 27 Tavoulareas was required to prove falsity at trial in order to prevail. Philadelphia Newspapers, 106 S.Ct. at 1563; Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64, 74, 85 S.Ct. 209, 215-16, 13 L.Ed.2d 125 (1964). Moreover, the defendants never conceded this bedrock element of plaintiff's case; quite to the contrary, they have adamantly maintained throughout these proceedings that the evidence of the story's truth (or substantial truth) precludes any reasonable inference of actual malice. See 567 F.Supp. at 654 n. 9; Brief for Appellees at 18. In turn, Tavoulareas himself has relied on evidence of falsity in his effort on appeal to establish actual malice, see, e.g., Brief for Appellant at 54, and the District Court found the evidence of the story's truth highly relevant to its decision to grant j.n.o.v. on the issue of actual malice. See 567 F.Supp. at 659-61. More fundamentally, the truth or falsity of allegedly defamatory speech must be considered if we are properly to balance the individual interest in vindicating a reputation that is wrongly sullied, Brief for Appellant at 17c (emphasis added), against the community's interest in free speech. See Philadelphia Newspapers, 106 S.Ct. 1558. We reject the extravagant suggestion that we ignore evidence of truth in reviewing the reasonableness of the jury's finding that the Post article was unprotected by the First Amendment.