Court Opinion

ID: 9553485
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:30:15.639605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:13.628627
License: Public Domain

CARDINE, Justice, specially
concurring.
I concur in the opinion of the court because of clear United States Supreme Court precedent. Nevertheless, I am less than enthusiastic over a state of law which allows a publisher to create a money-making business out of cruel, obscene, random attacks upon public figures. Nor am I able to justify these publications by equating them to the writing of Shakespeare or Chaucer. They are hardly in that class.
I could agree to reversal of summary judgment in Spence v. Flynt, 816 P.2d 771 (Wyo.1991), because Spence was subjected to a most bizarre, cruel, obscene libel only because he, as attorney, undertook representation of a client. Sadly, Dworkin is not in the same posture. My sympathies are with the dissenting justices, but established law requires my concurrence. See Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 110 S.Ct. 2695, 111 L.Ed.2d 1 (1990); Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 108 S.Ct. 876, 99 L.Ed.2d 41 (1988); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974); Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 87 S.Ct. 1975, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964).
In Milkovich, 497 U.S. 1, 110 S.Ct. 2695, the Supreme Court declined to create a separate, sweeping category of defamation exception for statements of “opinion” as opposed to statements of “fact.” The Court noted that an “opinion” exception could unjustifiably shield defamatory statements if the speaker or writer couched his or her statement in terms of opinion. Instead, the Court found adequate the protections secured by existing constitutional doctrine. These protections include exclusion from liability for statements on matters of public concern which cannot be proven false, protection for statements which cannot reasonably be interpreted as stating actual facts, and plaintiff’s burden of proving malice where a statement on a matter of public concern reasonably implies false and defamatory facts regarding public officials or public figures. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at -, 110 S.Ct. at 2706-07. It is in the light of these three protected areas that I suggest that there should be some rethinking of the apparent absolute immunity from suit for defamation granted to publishers who, for profit, regularly and randomly attack public figures. The law of defamation in our sister common-law jurisdiction, Canada, provides guidance in striking a better balance between the right to reputation and freedom of speech and of the press. I firmly believe that freedom of speech and of the press can survive nicely without the protection now afforded the likes of Hustler Magazine. Nevertheless, I must for the reasons stated specially concur.