Opinion ID: 185352
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: 21 We review the District Court's grant of appellees' Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss de novo. Taylor v. FDIC, 132 F.3d 753, 761 (D.C. Cir. 1997). Dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is proper when, taking the material allegations of the complaint as admitted, Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U.S. 411, 421 (1969), and construing them in plaintiff['s] favor, Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974), the court finds that the plaintiff[ ] ha[s] failed to allege all the material elements of [his] cause of action. Id. In undertaking this review, we must assume, as the complaint alleges, the falsity of any express or implied factual statements made in the article. See Complaint pp 1217, 28, 32. We must also assume that such statements were made by appellees with knowledge of their falsity or reckless disregard for their truth. See id.pp 29, 33. We must then decide whether the disputed article (1) contains express or implied verifiably false statements of fact, which (2) are reasonably capable of defamatory meaning or otherwise place appellant in an offensive false light. See Moldea v. New York Times Co., 15 F.3d 1137, 1142-43 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (hereinafter Moldea I), rev'd in part on reh'g, 22 F.3d 310 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (hereinafter Moldea II); see also Guilford Transp. Ind., Inc. v. Wilner, 760 A.2d 580, 597 (D.C. 2000). 22
23 For a statement to be actionable under the First Amendment, it must at a minimum express or imply a verifiably false fact about appellant. Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 19-20 (1990); Moldea II, 22 F.3d at 313 ([S]tatements of opinion can be actionable if they imply a provably false fact, or rely upon stated facts that are provably false.). However, a statement of opinion relating to matters of public concern which does not contain a provably false factual connotation will receive full constitutional protection. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20 (relying on Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767 (1986)). Thus, the First Amendment provides protection for statements that cannot 'reasonably [be] interpreted as stating actual facts' about an individual. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20 (quoting Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 50 (1988)). In deciding whether a reasonable fact finder could conclude that a statement expressed or implied a verifiably false fact about appellant, the court must consider the statement in context. Moldea II, 22 F.3d at 313-15. This provides assurance that public debate will not suffer for lack of 'imaginative expression' or the 'rhetorical hyperbole' which has traditionally added much to the discourse of our Nation. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20 (quoting Hustler Magazine, 485 U.S. at 53-55). Verifiability is therefore a critical threshold question at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage. 24 With these principles in mind, we reject appellant's claim that, by stating that he began to suffer bouts of pessimism and paranoia following the 1981 election, the article actually attributes to appellant a debilitating psychological condition. Appellant's Br. at 15. The article's single reference to paranoia is certainly pejorative, but the author deploys it in its popular, not clinical, sense to describe and criticize what he sees as early symptoms of the nervous breakdown that afflicts conservatives today. Article, at 22. Appellees rightly point out that the definitive, clinical term paranoia has taken on a less-than-definitive popular meaning, as have crazy and nutty. 25 Appellant argues that the present case is indistinguishable from Goldwater v. Ginzburg, 414 F.2d 324 (2d Cir. 1969), in which the Second Circuit upheld a defamation judgment against media defendants for reporting that Senator Barry Goldwater had a paranoiac personality. There, two authors penned a psychobiography of the Senator for Fact Magazine, asserting that he, in fact, suffered from clinically diagnosable paranoia. In so doing, they relied on a single-question survey of thousands of psychiatrists, whom they asked whether the Senator was psychologically fit to serve as President of the United States after informing each that the Senator had already suffered from two nervous breakdowns (which was not true). Id. at 329-30. They presented their findings as a psychological profile of the Senator, detailing various instances of his political and personal conduct as predictable manifestations of an underlying psychological illness. In short, the article purported to be a well-researched psychiatric diagnosis--which it was not. 26 The holding in Goldwater is both unremarkable and inapposite. The defendants in that case had published a fraudulent diagnosis, which was itself verifiable. Here, references to bouts of pessimism and paranoia, habits of suspicion, pessimism, and antagonism, and the fact that other conservatives have acted as nutty as Weyrich, cannot be so understood.Certainly, looking at these statements in isolation, a reasonable reader might interpret them to attribute a diagnosable and debilitating mental affliction to appellant. Bouts of ... paranoia might suggest appellant actually suffered repeated delusional or psychotic episodes, as appellant's brief suggests. But, the First Amendment demands that we place these references in their proper context. Moldea II, 22 F.3d at 314 (reversing in part Moldea I on rehearing, because Moldea I erred in assuming that Milkovich abandoned the principle of looking to the context in which speech appears). 27 The present case fits comfortably within the well-guarded Bresler-Letter Carriers line of decisions, the vitality of which the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed in Milkovich. 497 U.S. at 20. In Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Ass'n v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6 (1970), the Court extended First Amendment protection to a newspaper's assertion that a real estate developer had blackmailed the city. The Court noted that the statements would have been actionable if the paper actually had accused Bresler of committing the crime of blackmail. However, context revealed that the newspaper had used the term only to describe Bresler's hard-nosed negotiating tactics. Id. at 13. Similarly, in National Ass'n of Letter Carriers v. Austin, 418 U.S. 264 (1974), the Court held that a union could not be sued for its use of the term scab, defined in part as a traitor, though actual accusations of treason would be actionable. Id. at 283-84. 28 As used in the present case, the term paranoia animates the author's critique of what he sees as appellant's (and other conservatives') unwavering and, ultimately, self-defeating political dogmatism. The difficulty in the present case, if there is one, stems from the author's decision to interweave examples of appellant's political extremism with examples of his behavioral extremism. In one episode, the article reports appellant as having snapped and frothed at the mouth, erupting in anger so irrationally that onlookers were ready to get him a room right next to Hinckley. Article, at 22. In another, he becomes apoplectic after a guest admits his homosexuality on the air. Id. at 23. Former colleagues no longer speak to him; Orrin Hatch has implied that he has psychological problems. Id. at 24. Appellant has withdrawn, [m]ore and more isolated, surrounding himself with a coterie of sycophants, including Bill Lind, whose Manichaean ideology has only encouraged [appellant]. Id. Appellant argues that these episodes and anecdotes provide as much context for the phrase bouts of ... paranoia as does the general political commentary, and a reasonable reader might therefore regard the article as actually asserting that appellant suffers from, or has been diagnosed with, a psychological ailment. 29 Admittedly, the article paints an unflattering picture of appellant. Indeed, it uses examples of his famous temper to shade the line between political extremism and personal extremism, suggesting that the alleged irrationality of the conservative right runs deeper than mere ideology. But the article's suggestion that appellant's behavior exhibited paranoia is rhetorical sophistry, not a verifiably false attribution in fact of a debilitating mental condition as was the case in Goldwater. Never does the article claim to make a psychological pronouncement, nor would a reasonable reader understand it to do so. The New Republic is itself well-known to be a magazine of political commentary, a self-described Weekly Journal of Opinion. Presented in such a loose manner, in such a well-understood context, the article's reference to bouts of ... paranoia is neither verifiable nor does it imply specific defamatory facts about appellant. Likewise, the caricatures, though biting, are not actionable. See Hustler Magazine, 485 U.S. at 53-54 (extolling the value of political cartoons to a free society). 30 These findings do not end our analysis, however. The fact that the use of the term paranoia constitutes protected, unverifiable comment in the present case does not insulate the otherwise verifiable anecdotes reported by the author in support of his assertions that Weyrich is nutty and notable for his famous temper. In other words, an article's political context does not indiscriminately immunize every statement contained therein. 31 The complaint asserts that appellees have published a number of false anecdotes, suggesting to the average reader that appellant is not only a political reactionary, but emotionally volatile, perhaps even mentally unsound, and otherwise unfit for his profession. For example, the article includes some historical vignettes which, alone and in concert, offer the reader a glimpse of appellant's famous temper. Article, at 24. Unlike the two caricatures, nothing in the common parlance of political criticism would alert a reasonable reader that the article's anecdotes about Weyrich are other than verifiable facts. Indeed, in a number of instances, the author utilizes quotations, some purportedly from appellant, to further reinforce the impression that the stories are in fact true. See Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U.S. 496, 519-20 (1991) (The orthodox use of a quotation is the quintessential 'direct account of events that speak for themselves.'  (quoting Time, Inc. v. Pape, 401 U.S. 279, 285 (1971)). The anecdotes are not offered as forms of parody, see Hustler Magazine, 485 U.S. 46 (offering examples of protected parody); they are presented as the truth about Weyrich. And in most instances, the offending anecdotes are verifiable. 32 The line separating a fabricated narrative and hyperbolic description of an actual event is sometimes fuzzy. The First Amendment protects a reporter's rational interpretation of events or factual statements when relying on ambiguous sources. Masson, 501 U.S. at 519. If it turns out that the facts underlying the offending anecdotes are true, and appellant takes issue instead with the article's description and rhetorical juxtaposition of events, appellant's claim must fail. Rational interpretation passes over into verifiably false reporting of the described events only when the author has, through description and reporting, materially altered the underlying facts. Id. at 516. These issues are not before us on this appeal, however. Rather, as noted above, our inquiries on this appeal are limited to whether the disputed article (1) contains express or implied verifiably false statements of fact, which (2) are reasonably capable of defamatory meaning or otherwise place appellant in an offensive false light. We conclude here that the reported anecdotes survive the verifiability screen. We turn now to consider whether the cited anecdotes are reasonably capable of defamatory meaning.
33 Because this is a diversity action, we must first decide the proper law of defamation and false light invasion of privacy to apply. This court looks to the choice of law rules prevailing in the District of Columbia, see Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Elec. Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487, 496 (1941), which employs the governmental interest analysis test of the Restatement Second of Conflict of Laws, Vaughan v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 702 A.2d 198, 200 (D.C. 1997). Applying it to defamation actions, [t]he weight of authority considers that the law to be applied is ... [that of] the place where the plaintiff suffered injury by reason of his loss of reputation. Dowd v. Calabrese, 589 F. Supp. 1206, 1210 (D.D.C. 1984) (citing Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 150 cmt. e (1971)). Given the nature of appellant's livelihood, given that appellant worked in Washington, D.C. at the time the article was published, and given that both parties rely on District of Columbia law, we apply the District's common law of defamation and false light invasion of privacy in assessing the claims before us. 34 A statement is actionable in defamation under District of Columbia law if it is both false and defamatory. Moldea I, 15 F.3d at 1142. As noted above, because this is an appeal from a grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, we must assume the falsity of any verifiable statement. A statement is defamatory if it tends to injure plaintiff in his trade, profession or community standing, or lower him in the estimation of the community. Liberty Lobby, Inc. v. Dow Jones & Co., 838 F.2d 1287, 129394 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (quoting Howard Univ. v. Best, 484 A.2d 958, 988 (D.C. 1984)). An allegedly defamatory remark must be more than unpleasant or offensive; the language must make the plaintiff appear 'odious, infamous, or ridiculous.'  Best, 484 A.2d at 989. Whether a statement is capable of defamatory meaning is a question of law, but [i]t is only when the court can say that the publication is not reasonably capable of any defamatory meaning and cannot be reasonably understood in any defamatory sense that it can rule as a matter of law, that it was not libelous. White v. Fraternal Order of Police, 909 F.2d 512, 518 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (quoting Levy v. American Mut. Ins. Co., 196 A.2d 475, 476 (D.C. 1964)). 35 Although we do not here dissect each verifiable statement to provide an exhaustive list for the District Court, potential candidates include the author's observation that appellant, in response to Bill Pascoe's perceived betrayal, snapped, erupted in a volcano of screaming, froth[ed] at the mouth, and dispatched a letter to Pascoe's fiancEe, questioning Pascoe's loyalty and implying that he was unfit for marriage. Article, at 22. If indeed the story is fabricated, we cannot say that it is not reasonably capable of any defamatory meaning--it arguably makes appellant appear highly volatile, irrational, unsound and otherwise odious, infamous, or ridiculous. 36 Not all of the verifiably false anecdotes relied upon by appellant are reasonably capable of defamatory meaning. For example, at the hearing on the motion to dismiss in the District Court, counsel for appellant protested vigorously that the author had defamed appellant by falsely asserting that Newt Gingrich had refused to sign another NET anchor contract, that Trent Lott had revoked appellant's capitol parking privileges, and that John McCain will not talk with him. Transcript of Hearing, at 8-9 (Aug. 13, 1999), reprinted in J.A. at 33. We agree with the District Court that, even if false, these facially innocuous statements are not themselves defamatory and, as such, should have no bearing on the resolution of appellant's claims on remand. They certainly do not, on their face, suggest anything untoward about appellant. On remand, the District Court must decide which of the verifiably false statements cited by appellant are reasonably capable of defamatory meaning. We emphasize again that, to be actionable, the story must be materially false. If the author has merely hyperbolized, provided colorful rhetorical description of appellant's anger, that will not suffice. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 581A cmt. f (1977) (Slight inaccuracies of expression are immaterial provided that the defamatory charge is true in substance.); see also Masson, 501 U.S. at 516-17 (applying substantial truth doctrine).
37 We pause only briefly over appellant's related false light invasion of privacy claim. Though invasion of privacy false light is distinct from the tort of defamation, the same First Amendment protections apply. See Moldea I, 15 F.3d at 1151 ([A] plaintiff may not avoid the stricturesof the burdens of proof associated with defamation by resorting to a claim of false light invasion.). Because the two torts are so similar, [a] plaintiff may only recover on one of the two theories based on a single publication, but is free to plead them in the alternative. Id. 38 To prevail on a false light claim under District of Columbia law, appellant must show that (a) the published material places appellant in a false light which would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and (b) the actor had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light in which the other would be placed. Id. at 1150-51 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652E). The second element tracks the First Amendment's intent requirement for defamation claims brought by public figures, see New York Times, 376 U.S. 254, and the court at this stage assumes the requisite state of mind. The Restatement Second of Torts recognizes that the highly offensive and odious, infamous, and ridiculous inquiries, though similar, may sometimes produce different results. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652E cmt. b. We remind the District Court that, before finding that a statement is not actionable, because it is not reasonably capable of defamatory meaning, it must also satisfy itself that the statement does not arguably place appellant in a highly offensive false light.