Court Opinion

ID: 9850372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:56:14.540785+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:35.980782
License: Public Domain

G. S. Allen, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. I am unable to agree with my colleagues’ resolution of the first issue raised on appeal. I do not agree that plaintiff has carried the burden of proof that the statements in the Enquirer article were false. Contrary to plaintiffs counsel’s re*49peated arguments to the jury and to my colleagues’ conclusion, the article in question does not accuse plaintiff of committing the sexual assault. Instead, it is a news account of plaintiff’s arrest as a suspect and the facts leading up to why plaintiff was a suspect.
A statement that an investigation of a crime is underway does not rise to the level of an accusation that the person being investigated committed the crime. Cf. Jones v Schaeffer, 122 Mich App 301, 305; 332 NW2d 423 (1982).
Omitted from the majority opinion is the most important part of the news story — its headline. In boldface type the headline reads:
Police arrest suspect in baby-sitter assault[.]
It is this boldfaced headline which first captures a reader’s attention. It does not state that plaintiff committed the assault. It states what was true, namely that plaintiff was arrested and was a suspect.
The body of the article then proceeds to recite the details establishing probable cause to make the arrest. Comparison of those details set forth in the printed story with the content of the police reports introduced into evidence as defendant’s Exhibits a, b, c and d, and the testimony of township police officers at trial discloses that, except for one minor misstatement of fact and the arguable use of the word "charged,” every statement in the printed story was true. The minor error was the statement that plaintiff was identified by his children rather than by his ex-wife’s children. Minor inaccuracies do not constitute falsity. "If the gist, the sting, of the article is substantially true, the defendant is not liable.” Rouch v Enquirer & News of Battle Creek, Michigan, 137 Mich App 39, 43, n 2; 357 *50NW2d 794 (1984). Slight inaccuracies will not make an otherwise accurate article false, provided the inaccuracy in no way alters the gist of the article. Fisher v Detroit Free Press, Inc, 158 Mich App 409, 414; 404 NW2d 765 (1987), lv den 428 Mich 914 (1987), reconsideration den 429 Mich 882 (1987). See also Kurz v The Evening News Ass’n, 182 Mich App 737; 453 NW2d 309 (1990); McCracken v Evening News Ass’n, 3 Mich App 32, 40; 141 NW2d 694 (1966); Orr v Argus-Press Co, 586 F2d 1108, 1112-1113 (CA 6, 1978), cert den 440 US 960; 99 S Ct 1502; 59 L Ed 2d 773 (1979). Whether an article is substantially true is a legal question. Rouch, 137 Mich App 43, n 2. In my opinion the statement that defendant was identified by his children rather than his ex-wife’s children is a minor error which is not false in any material respect.
Of greater concern is the use of the word "charged.” The word appears three times in the article. It is true that plaintiff was never formally charged in the sense that a written warrant was issued. But it is also true, and the testimony at trial indisputably discloses, that after the officers interviewed the victim who identified plaintiff as the assailant, plaintiff was arrested by officers, was handcuffed, and was taken to the police station where he was booked on charges of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree and felonious assault. Defendant’s Exhibit A, a uniform standard incident report used by the Bedford Township Police Department, sets forth the details of the incident and contains the following:
Disposition: Prosecutor Pattison was beeifed [sic] on the complaint and the circumstances surroudding [sic] the arrest of suspect. He advised to lodge the suspect on CSClst. The suspect was trans*51ported to Calhoun Co jail by Sgt Owens and was booked on the charge. The report shall be submitted to the prosecutor for review, date.
The deposition of John Bell, Chief of Police of Bedford Township from 1972 until his retirement in 1984, confirms the facts set forth in the incident report:
Q. [Defense Counsel Bernius]: Prosecutor Patti-son was advised as to what the officers had found and heard from the witnesses, isn’t that correct?
A. [Bell\: Yes.
Q. And what office did Pattison work for?
A. Calhoun County Prosecutor.
Q. Do you recall his full name?
A. No. I don’t.
Q. Okay. And Prosecutor Pattison authorized Mr. Rouch to be arrested on a charge of criminal sexual conduct, first degree, isn’t that correct?
A. Yes.
Given the above uncontroverted facts, I fail to comprehend why the statements that defendant "was charged” and that "the charge against Rouch was authorized Friday by the Calhoun County Prosecutor’s Office” were false. Only if one narrowly construes the word "charged” to mean a formal warrant issued by the prosecutor’s office are the statements false. But if one construes "charged” in its popular and generally accepted usage as meaning "accused,” then the statements are accurate.
Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary defines the word "charge” as follows: "[T]o make an accusation against: accuse.” Undeniably, plaintiff was "accused” by the prosecutor or the arresting officers of suspected criminal sexual conduct. At trial, plaintiff himself used the word *52"charge” in its popular and generally accepted sense:
Q. [Plaintiff’s Counsel Jereck]: What did you tell the Chief? Were you willing to talk to the police about what this was about or not?
A. [Rouch]: Yes, I asked him what the charge was and he told me it was a sexual assault on a child — that’s what he told me.
Q. Okay. At any rate, after they talked to you, what did they do with you?
A. They told me that I was — that, you know, the charge that they — that I was being charged with. [Emphasis supplied.]
The dual connotation of "charge” was recognized by the Michigan Supreme Court upon review of this Court’s opinion in Rouch, supra.
In Rouch, 137 Mich App 43, our Court stated:
Although plaintiff was arrested for the crime, he was never charged.2
On appeal our Supreme Court declined to rule that plaintiff was "never charged.” Instead the Court stated that plaintiff was "never formally charged with the crime.” Rouch v Enquirer & News of Battle Creek, 427 Mich 157, 160; 398 *53NW2d 245 (1986), reh den 428 Mich 1207 (1987). In so stating, the Court clearly recognized the distinction between the generally accepted use of the word "accused” and its technical, legalistic meaning.
More significantly, by remanding the case to the trial court with the admonition that "plaintiffs who choose to bring actions in libel on the basis of such reports must ñrst prove that the statements were false,” id. at 206, the Court implicitly, if not explicitly, rejected the statement in footnote 2 of our opinion in Rouch that none of the underlying facts were true and thus the defense that the article was substantially true was defeated. Had the Supreme Court believed that the use of the word "charged” in itself constituted a falsity, there would be no reason to remand for trial on the issue of the article’s falsity.
In my opinion plaintiff should not be permitted upon testifying to use the word "charge” as it is customarily and popularly understood, but on appeal to employ the word in its narrow and legalistic meaning of issuance of a formal warrant. In my opinion newspapers should not be held to technical legal language. Instead, they should be held to the use of words as they are customarily and popularly used. Clearly, although plaintiff was not formally charged, he was accused of a sexual offense on the night in question. The news article so stated. Viewed in this light, there is not a single statement in the article, except the reference to identification by plaintiff’s children rather than his ex-wife’s children, which is not true. There being no material falsity established by plaintiff, the judgment should be reversed and the case dismissed.

 By itself, this particular inaccuracy is not libelous. If the gist, the sting, of the article is substantially true, the defendant is not liable. ... In this limited context, the sting is the fact of the arrest. To most of the reading public, the additional fact of being formally charged by the prosecutor adds little. The fact that he did not commit the rape and that none of the underlying facts of the story are true, however, defeats the defense that the article was substantially true. [Emphasis added.]