Opinion ID: 2088740
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: was plaintiff a public figure?

Text: In instructing the jury concerning the law of libel, the trial justice noted that our decision in DeCarvalho v. DaSilva, R.I., 414 A.2d 806, 813 (1980), reiterates the principle established by the United States Supreme Court that it is for the trial justice in the first instance to determine whether the plaintiff in an action for defamation is a public figure. This preliminary ruling, of course, is critical to the standard of proof plaintiff must bear with respect to defendant's conduct in publishing the alleged defamatory material. In the case at bar, the trial justice determined that Martin was a public figure in the Village of Shannock and in the environs of Shannock, specifically in the area where the Chariho Times was published. The plaintiff challenges this determination on two grounds. He argues that his status as a public figure should have been determined not by looking to the 1977 population of approximately 300 individuals who resided in Shannock where the paper was circulated and who might have recognized plaintiff as a public figure but rather by looking to the entire circulation (3,000 copies) of the newspaper during this period and ascertaining whether such readership would have considered plaintiff a public figure. The plaintiff points out that the Chariho Times that contained the alleged defamatory paragraph was delivered to residents in towns other than Shannock, which readers were unfamiliar with Martin. The plaintiff's other contention is that notwithstanding any group's being used as a measure to determine plaintiff's public-figure status, plaintiff's mere ownership of property in Shannock and the village residents' knowledge of him did not justify the trial justice's conclusion that plaintiff, in the circumstances of this case, was a public figure. We disagree with both of these contentions. We stated in DeCarvalho, supra, that in accordance with the holding in Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U.S. 75, 86 S.Ct. 669, 15 L.Ed.2d 597 (1966), it is for the trial judge in the first instance to determine whether the proofs show plaintiff to be a public official or public figure. We went on to state that it was the obligation of this court to make an independent examination of the whole record in order to determine the correctness of the trial justice's decision. DeCarvalho, R.I., 414 A.2d at 813. See New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 285, 84 S.Ct. 710, 728-29, 11 L.Ed.2d 686, 709 (1964). In reviewing the trial justice's decision and exercising our independent judgment, we do not sit as a court of nisi prius, and deference must be given to the findings of fact made by the trial justice and inferences drawn therefrom as in all determinations of questions of mixed law and fact. Fournier v. Fournier, R.I., 479 A.2d 708, 715 (1984); State v. Cline, 122 R.I. 297, 303, 405 A.2d 1192, 1196 (1979). The Supreme Court of the United States has given guidance for the determination of public-figure status in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974), and some further refinement in Time, Inc. v. Firestone, 424 U.S. 448, 96 S.Ct. 958, 47 L.Ed.2d 154 (1976). Neither of these cases purports to give a hard and fast definition. Consequently, the trial justice must look to the facts of each case in order to make this basic constitutional determination upon which the burden of proof will depend. In the case at bar, the trial justice found that plaintiff had attained public-figure status in the village of Shannock. Martin had also been the subject of publications in the New England Press outside the Chariho area, including the Boston Globe, the Providence Journal, and the Westerly Sun. He had also been interviewed and was included in a film concerning Shannock in 1976 by the Rhode Island Department of Community Affairs. As a consequence, the evidence in the case would clearly support the conclusion that Martin's fame had spread beyond the confines of the village of Shannock into surrounding areas. Of course, very few individuals will be known to all subscribers or purchasers of any publication. In the case in which the public-figure status was first enunciated, Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 87 S.Ct. 1975, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967), it could scarcely have been contended that the football coach at the University of Georgia was known to all of the subscribers to the Saturday Evening Post. Even Major General Edwin Walker may not have been known to all of the subscribers to that publication. It is sufficient to attain public-figure status that plaintiff should have been known to a substantial portion of the publication's readership. In the instant case, we conclude that there was ample evidence in the record to support the trial justice's determination that plaintiff was a public figure within the area in which the Chariho Times was circulated.