Opinion ID: 2581048
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Defamation Claim Against Discovery

Text: Kinzel sued Discovery for defamation arising out of an e-mail Kyle Brown wrote to Craig Martin on December 16, 1998: Just for your information, Jeff [Kinzel] filed a bogus work comp claim (alleged back injury on a different site) a few days after he left Fbx and has not worked a minute since. At trial, the jury found in favor of Discovery on this claim. The jury could not agree whether the bogus statement was true or false, [59] but decided that Brown did not know, nor should he have reasonably known, that the statement was false. Kinzel appeals claiming that his expert witnesses were improperly excluded and the jury was erroneously instructed. We conclude that no error was committed concerning the exclusion of expert witnesses because Kinzel was allowed to present expert testimony that his claim was genuine rather than bogus. This reason is examined in more detail in the next section. In this section we deal with Kinzel's claim concerning the jury instructions. Kinzel leads off by claiming that the jury should not have been instructed at all as to whether his claim was bogus. Instead, he claims that he was entitled to a directed verdict that his claim was not bogus. Discovery does not counter this argument other than to say that it is too cursory and therefore has been abandoned. Kinzel's argument on this point is cursory. But he makes the essential point in his opening brief that Discovery did not contradict the validity of his claim, and this appears to be true. Although Kinzel may have been entitled to a directed verdict instructing the jury that Brown's statement that his claim was bogus was false, the error was harmless. The jury's finding that Brown did not act negligently in making the statement renders the error concerning failing to direct a verdict as to the falsity of the statement irrelevant. Fault amounting at least to negligence is an essential element of a defamation claim. [60] Since it was found not to exist, the claim necessarily fails. Kinzel also claims that an instruction on duty to investigate was requested but refused. He claims that without such investigation Brown could not be said to have acted reasonably. Since a person who makes an unprivileged defamatory statement that is false is liable unless he reasonably believes it to be true, an instruction explaining that such a person has an obligation to use due care to ascertain the truth or falsity of his statement might have been appropriate. But Kinzel's briefing on this point is inadequate. He has not demonstrated that the instruction he offered is a correct statement of the law or that the instructions given by the court were erroneous or incomplete. [61]