Opinion ID: 1940890
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The plaintiff engaged in illegal insurance practices.

Text: The trial court found that exhibit 1 does not accuse the plaintiff of engaging in illegal insurance practices, but it did characterize the plaintiff's letter (exhibit 5) as being an illegal letter. However, according to the district court's findings, that statement constituted opinion which is not actionable, as provided by Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974), and Restatement (Second) of Torts § 566 (1977). The Restatement, supra at 170, provides the following regarding expressions of opinion as defamation: A defamatory communication may consist of a statement in the form of an opinion, but a statement of this nature is actionable only if it implies the allegation of undisclosed defamatory facts as the basis for the opinion. The Restatement draws a distinction between two kinds of expression of opinion. The simple expression of opinion, or pure opinion, occurs when the maker of the comment states the facts on which he bases his opinion and then expresses a comment as to the plaintiff's conduct, qualifications, or character. The Restatement, supra at comment b. The pure type of expression of opinion also may occur without the expression of the alleged facts on which the maker bases his opinion, but both parties to the communication know the facts or assume their existence and the comment is clearly based on those facts. Id. The second kind of expression of opinion, the mixed type, is an opinion in form or content but is apparently based on facts about the plaintiff or his conduct that have not been stated by the defendant or assumed to exist by the parties to the communication. The expression of the opinion gives rise to the inference that the defendant knows undisclosed facts that justify the forming of his opinion. The Restatement, supra at comment c., states that the common-law rule that a pure type of an expression of opinion may be the basis of a defamation action appears to have been rendered unconstitutional by Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., supra . The Court in Gertz stated at 339-40, 94 S.Ct. at 3006-07: Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea. However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas. But there is no constitutional value in false statements of fact. As comment c. recognizes, the language in Gertz about there being no such thing as a false idea was only dicta. In addition, Gertz involved a media defendant, while the present case involved a nonmedia defendant. However, comment c. states that the logic of the constitutional principle would appear to apply to all expressions of opinion of the first, or pure, type. Courts have interpreted Gertz as prohibiting defamation actions based on expressions of pure opinion, even when nonmedia defendants are involved. See Gregory v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 17 Cal.3d 596, 552 P.2d 425, 131 Cal.Rptr. 641 (1976) (involving a labor dispute, with the president and vice president of a labor union as the plaintiffs and the employer of union members as the defendant). In Henry v. Halliburton, 690 S.W.2d 775 (Mo.1985), an insurance agent and a business brought a defamation action against the author of an article in a trade association newsletter. The article was later sent to two prospective customers, and it was on this action that plaintiffs sued. The article used language such as fraud and said that certain agents acted with `greed' in order to fleec[e] customers. Id. at 778. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendant knew the statements were false and defamatory and were made for the purpose of dissuading the customers from buying life insurance from the plaintiffs and to damage their business reputation. The petition was dismissed for failing to state a cause of action, and the Missouri Supreme Court affirmed, finding that the statements were nonactionable opinion. In the final analysis, Welliver's characterization of Turner's letter (exhibit 5) as an illegal letter only describes a violation of USDA regulations, which the record bears out as true, and was not actually an accusation of criminal conduct. Additionally, even if Welliver's statements did not qualify as nonactionable pure opinion, the truth of the statements still would be a defense to any defamation claim. (5) Plaintiff was the subject of USDA investigation for illegal and unethical insurance practices and would be the subject of an additional investigation. According to the trial court, exhibit 1 did accuse and imply that the plaintiff was the subject of a USDA investigation for unethical practices and could be the subject of additional investigation and, as such, was defamatory. As in (3), above, the trial court, however, found that such statements were actionable per se and would subject the defendants to liability without proof of special damages unless the statements were true. The trial court found as a matter of law that the evidence disclosed that the statements were true and were privileged. We believe that our discussion in (3), above, regarding truth and malice, as well as our general discussion as to special damages, adequately disposes of this issue.