Opinion ID: 781837
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statements in ARTnews

Text: 29 Judge Cedarbaum granted summary judgment to the defendants on the Lanham Act claim addressed to the reported statements by Mark and Regina in an article about the prevalence of fraud in the market of Russian avant-garde art. Mark and Regina are described in the article as asserting that Lazar never sold or parted with any of his work, that they were absolutely sure that the Paintings have nothing to do with Khidekel, that they each told the Boulés that the Paintings were not Khidekels, and that they did not endorse the Boulés' collection, as the catalogue for the 1992 exhibition at the Joliette Museum in Canada implied. 30 This Court recently adopted a three-part test to determine whether statements constitute commercial advertising or promotion, as that phrase is used in the Lanham Act. See Fashion Boutique of Short Hills, Inc. v. Fendi USA, Inc., 314 F.3d 48, 56-58 (2d Cir.2002). The statement must be (1) commercial speech; ... [(2)] for the purpose of influencing consumers to buy defendant's goods or services; and [(3)] although representations less formal than those made as part of a classic advertising campaign may suffice, they must be disseminated sufficiently to the relevant purchasing public. Id. at 56. This test adopts three of the four prongs first described by the Honorable Leonard B. Sand in Gordon & Breach Science Publishers S.A. v. Am. Inst. of Physics, 859 F.Supp. 1521, 1535-36 (S.D.N.Y.1994). We did not need to reach in Fashion Boutique, and we do not need to reach here, whether the fourth prong from Gordon & Breach — that the defendant and the plaintiff be competitors — is necessary to find commercial advertising and promotion. See Fashion Boutique, 314 F.3d at 58. If the requirement of competition were a necessary element, the Boulés offered sufficient evidence that Mark and Regina were their competitors in the sale of art attributed to Lazar to survive summary judgment. 31 The Boulés also offered sufficient evidence in opposition to the motion for summary judgment to raise questions of fact regarding two of the components of the Fashion Boutique test. First, they submitted evidence that Mark and Regina spoke as they did to ARTnews with the purpose of influencing consumers to buy their own collection of Lazar's paintings. The district court nonetheless held that the fact that Mark and Regina's statements were a response to an unsolicited inquiry by a magazine reporter seeking comment on a topic of public concern foreclosed recovery under Section 43(a), as the words of the statute connote proactive, not merely reactive, communication. Boulé, 70 F.Supp.2d at 390 (citation omitted). As noted in Fashion Boutique, however, the proactive-reactive distinction employed by the district court is instructive, but not necessarily dispositive in determining whether a representation is designed to reach the public. Fashion Boutique, 314 F.3d at 57-58. The Boulés offered evidence sufficient to find that the Khidekels intended and expected that their statements to ARTnews would be disseminated to virtually every important collector and dealer in Russian Suprematist art, and that the statements were part of their campaign to disparage the Boulés' Paintings. Boulé, 70 F.Supp.2d at 390 (citation omitted). Second, with their evidence about the prominence of ARTnews in the commercial art world, the Boulés also offered evidence that the ARTnews statements were disseminated sufficiently to the relevant consumers. 32 The remaining prong of the test for commercial advertising or promotion is whether the statement constitutes commercial speech. The district court concluded that there was strong evidence that the ARTnews statements damaged the commercial interests of the plaintiffs and promoted the commercial interests of the Khidekels. It concluded, however, that Section 43(a) does not cover a response to an unsolicited inquiry by a magazine reporter seeking comment on a topic of public concern. Boulé, 70 F.Supp.2d at 390. 33 We have little hesitation in deciding that as a matter of law the ARTnews article, and the Khidekels' statements quoted in that article, are not commercial speech. The article itself addresses a matter of public concern — fraud in the art market — and is certainly protected. The Khidekels' statements contained in the article are inextricably intertwined with the reporters' coverage of their topic. The statements by the Khidekels in ARTnews contribute to reporters' discussion of an issue of public importance and occur in a forum that has traditionally been granted full protection under the First Amendment. As always with the public expression of opinion, we have been careful not to permit over-extension of the Lanham Act to intrude on First Amendment values. Groden v. Random House, Inc., 61 F.3d 1045, 1052 (2d Cir.1995). 7 Consequently, the defendants were entitled to a grant of summary judgment on that portion of the Lanham Act claim that addressed the statements by the Khidekels in ARTnews. 34