Opinion ID: 1758546
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: City Editor

Text: The Crookston Police Department is following up on a citizen's accusation of wrongdoing by a police officer made at the conclusion of the March 10 City Council meeting. Council meetings are open to public comment at their conclusion, but rarely are any comments made. At that meeting, however, as ward six alderman and Vice-Mayor Frank Lindgrensitting in for the absent Mayor Don Osborne prepared to adjourn for the evening, ward one resident Dennis McDaniel asked for an opportunity to speak. When recognized and told he had the floor, McDaniel said that young people in Crookston have a lot of problems, including drugs, and he said their drug problems would be decreased if someone would do something to stop Crookston Police officer Gerry Moreno from selling drugs out of the trunk of his squad car. McDaniel also said he had witnesses. After getting McDaniel's name and address, Lindgren said the council would take the matter under advisement. Police Chief Paul Monteen on Friday limited his comments on the matter, saying only that the police department would be remiss not to see that McDaniel's accusation is followed up on. When the process is concluded, Monteen said more information would be forthcoming. After McDaniel's comments at the March 10 meeting, Monteen spoke with him. I asked him if he wanted to make a formal complaint, and he declined to do so, Monteen said. I haven't talked to him since. As Friday wore on, rumors of an officer or officers being busted for wrongdoing circulated around town. Monteen said the rumors were untrue. He said he had been at a training session with officer Moreno for the better part of Friday. If McDaniel's name sounds familiar, that's because it is. He's an outspoken citizen, and is a frequent contributor to the Times' Editorial Page. The Times asserts that Officer Moreno called the Times the day after the article was published, but that subsequent efforts to make contact failed. Moreno, through his counsel, then sent a letter to the Times demanding a retraction of the March 23 article. This letter was sent in accordance with Minn.Stat. § 548.06 (1998). [1] The Times did not retract the article, and continued a follow-up investigation into the story. On April 15, 1998, Christopherson spoke by telephone with McDaniel who reiterated the truth of his accusation at the council meeting. In another interview later that same day, McDaniel stated that he had been looking after a boy who informed him that Officer Moreno had appeared at a local party in his patrol car and had been dealing drugs. McDaniel also told Christopherson that he knew of other witnesses to Moreno's activities, but would not reveal names because the witnesses were scared. McDaniel did identify one person by name who he claimed also heard the boy's statement. However, when Christopherson attempted to contact that person, he learned that the person had died. On April 16, 1998, Christopherson contacted the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's Fargo, North Dakota Field Office and inquired about any investigation related to McDaniel's accusation. An agent informed Christopherson that the DEA had investigated Officer Moreno, that the investigation was complete, and that the DEA found no support for McDaniel's accusation. On April 20, 1998, the Times ran a second article recounting the results of the DEA investigation, stating that the DEA had found no evidence of wrongdoing by a Crookston police officer. A few weeks after the second article, Officer Moreno brought an action against the Times in Polk County District Court, alleging that the March 23 article was defamatory and was made with negligent and reckless disregard for the truth and with malice. The Times' answer asserted several defenses of privilege, including that the article was a fair comment on the conduct of a public official, made in the public interest on a matter of public concern, and was a fair and accurate report of a public proceeding. It is only this latter defensethat the article was a fair and accurate report of a public proceeding that is the subject matter of this appeal. On July 23, 1998, the Times moved for judgment on the pleadings or for summary judgment, arguing that its March 23 article was privileged as a fair and accurate report of a public proceeding. The district court granted the Times' motion for judgment on the pleadings or, in the alternative, summary judgment. In its attached memorandum, the court concluded that the fair and accurate reporting privilege as described in the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 611 (1976) was applicable under Minnesota law. [2] The court then concluded that the Times' March 23 article was a fair and accurate report of a public proceeding and that it was therefore privileged. The court also noted that a showing of malice would not defeat this privilege. At Officer Moreno's request, the court amended its order to permit immediate entry of final judgment for the Times and against Moreno to allow Moreno to commence his appeal pursuant to Minn. R. Civ. P. 54.02. The court of appeals reversed the district court and remanded, concluding that the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 611 was not the law in Minnesota and that a showing of common law malice would defeat any privilege attaching to the fair and accurate reporting of public proceedings. See Moreno v. Crookston Times Printing Co., 594 N.W.2d 555, 559 (Minn.App.1999). We accepted review of the court of appeals' decision and, on cross-appeal by Officer Moreno, review of the issue of whether the district court properly applied the fair and accurate reporting privilege to the entire Times' article.
Before addressing the specific legal questions presented on review, we must resolve two preliminary issues. First, we address the procedural posture of the matter before us. The record is unclear about what the district court intended when it granted the Times' motion for judgment on the pleadings or, in the alternative, summary judgment. The court did not specify which it was grantingjudgment on the pleadings or summary judgment. The court of appeals treated this matter as an appeal from an entry of judgment on the pleadings under Minn. R. Civ. P. 12.03. See Moreno, 594 N.W.2d at 556. Because the court of appeals concluded that the district court applied an incorrect legal standard, it did not consider whether the district court correctly applied that standard to the Times' article. Both the rules of civil procedure and the decisions of our court are clear, [i]f, on [a motion for judgment on the pleadings], matters outside the pleadings are presented to and not excluded by the court, the motion shall be treated as one for summary judgment and disposed of as provided for in Rule 56   . Minn. R. Civ. P. 12.03; see also McAllister v. Independent Sch. Dist. No. 306, 276 Minn. 549, 551, 149 N.W.2d 81, 83 (1967). The district court ruled that the Times' March 23 article was a fair and accurate report of the March 10 city council meeting. To do this, the court considered the article, which was attached and incorporated into Officer Moreno's complaint. However, in order to reach its conclusion, the court also had to compare the article with the official transcript of the city council meeting. Neither party incorporated a transcript of the city council meeting into the pleadings, but the Times attached a copy of the minutes to its motion for summary judgment. The court therefore considered matters outside the pleadings in making its ruling. Accordingly, we conclude that the court decided this matter as a summary judgment motion under the rules of civil procedure and our review will proceed accordingly. The second preliminary issue to resolve is whether Officer Moreno alleged that the entire March 23 article was defamatory or merely those parts that relayed McDaniel's accusation at the city council meeting. Moreno asserts that his complaint was not limited to any particular part of the article, but rather alleged that the article as a whole was defamatory. The Times claims that Moreno's complaint alleged as defamatory only that part of the articleparagraph threewhich relayed McDaniel's accusation. Neither the district court nor the court of appeals addressed this issue; however, our analysis requires that it be resolved. Minnesota law has generally required that in defamation suits, the defamatory matter be set out verbatim. See American Book Co. v. Kingdom Pub. Co., 71 Minn. 363, 366, 73 N.W. 1089, 1090 (1898). In the case of an allegation that a newspaper article contained defamatory material, a plaintiff need set out only so much of the article as contains the defamatory material. See Blethen v. Stewart, 41 Minn. 205, 206, 42 N.W. 932, 932 (1889). Otherwise, our general rules of pleading only require a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief   . Minn. R. Civ. P. 8.01. In this case, Officer Moreno's complaint set forth that: 4. On March 23, 1998, Defendant Daily Times published the newspaper article which is attached to this Complaint as Exhibit A and incorporated herein. 5. On information and belief, at the March 10, 1998 meeting of the city council of the City of Crookston, Defendant McDaniel made the statements contained in the third paragraph of the newspaper article referred to in the preceding paragraph. 6. The statements made by Defendants are defamatory. 7. The statements made by Defendants are false and Defendants either knew or, exercising the care of a reasonable person under the circumstances, should have known that they are false.     9. Defendant Daily Times made and published the newspaper article containing the statements with malice. Paragraph five of the complaint puts McDaniel's accusation as contained in paragraph three of the article at issue, but paragraphs four, six, and nine put the Times' article in its entirety at issue. Further, the Times' answer neither limits its response to any particular part of the article nor does it specifically ask the district court to limit Officer Moreno's claim. The plain language of the complaint and our general rules of pleading indicate that Moreno pleaded facts sufficient to place the entire March 23 article at issue in this matter. We will treat it accordingly.
The central dispute in this appeal focuses on the nature and the scope of the fair and accurate reporting privilege as it applies to civil claims of defamation [3] for reporting the events of a city council meeting. The Times urges us to affirm the district court's conclusion that the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 611 articulates the fair and accurate reporting privilege in Minnesota and that the privilege may not be defeated by a showing of malice. Officer Moreno argues that the fair and accurate reporting privilege in Minnesota is a qualified privilege and may be defeated by a showing of malice. Because this matter comes before us from a grant of summary judgment and does not involve any disputed facts, only questions of law, we review it de novo. See Christensen v. Eggen, 577 N.W.2d 221, 224 (Minn.1998). This court has never specifically addressed the application of a fair and accurate reporting privilege in the context of a city council meeting. Nor have we adopted the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 611 as the law in Minnesota. Therefore, we proceed to address the questions of whether, under Minnesota law, we recognize a fair and accurate reporting privilege; if so, whether we should adopt section 611 as the specific articulation of the privilege; and finally, if we do recognize a fair and accurate reporting privilege, whether this privilege protects the Times' March 23 article.