Court Opinion

ID: 9472952
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:15:27.322612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:14.514835
License: Public Domain

SCALIA, Circuit Judge, with whom Circuit Judges WALD and HARRY T. EDWARDS, join,
dissenting in part.
More plaintiffs should bear in mind that it is a normal human reaction, after painstakingly examining and rejecting thirty invalid and almost absurd contentions, to reject the thirty-first contention as well, and make a clean sweep of the matter. I have no other explanation for the majority’s affirmance of summary judgment dismissing what seems to me a classic and cooly crafted libel, Evans and Novak’s disparagement of Oilman’s professional reputation. Judge Wald’s opinion has fully responded to the straightforward contention of the majority opinion that this disparagement should be regarded as a mere nonactionable statement of opinion. I write separately to survey in somewhat greater detail the concurrence’s more scenic route to what turns out to be the same destination.
It seems to me that the concurrence embarks upon an exercise of, as it puts it, constitutional “evolution,” with very little reason and'with very uncertain effect upon the species. Existing doctrine provides ample protection against the entire list of horribles supposedly confronting the defenseless modern publicist:
—The need to give special scope to political rhetoric is already met by recognition that hyperbole is an expected form of expression in that context. If Evans and Novak had chosen to call Oilman a traitor to our nation, fair enough. No reasonable person would believe, in that context, that they really meant a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2381 (1982). See Old Dominion Branch No. 496, National Association of Letter Carriers v. Austin, 418 U.S. 264, 285-86, 94 S.Ct. 2770, 2781-82, 41 L.Ed.2d 745 (1974). The concurrence correctly claims the defense of this doctrine for the “no status” assertion. Surely it did not mean that Oilman had no status — only that his regard in the profession was not high. But to say, as the concurrence does, that hyperbole excuses not merely the exaggeration but the fact sought to be vividly conveyed by the exaggeration is to mistake a freedom to enliven discourse for a freedom to destroy reputation. The libel that “Smith is an incompetent carpenter” is not converted into harmless and nonactionable wordplay by merely embellishing it into the statement that “Smith is the worst carpenter this side of the Mississippi.”
—The expectation that one who enters the “public, political arena,” Bork op. at 1004, must be prepared to take a certain amount of “public bumping,” id., is already fulsomely assured by the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964), requirement of actual malice in the defamation of public figures. One would think, from the concurrence’s lugubrious description of the plight of the modern political publicist, that Evans and Novak were to be held to the truth of what they said — whereas in fact, in order *1037to find them liable a public-figure plaintiff (such as the concurrence’s argument assumes Ollman to be, see Waldbaum v. Fairchild Publications, Inc., 627 F.2d 1287, 1292 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 898, 101 S.Ct. 266, 66 L.Ed.2d 128 (1980)), must establish not only that their allegation was false, but also that they knew it to be so, or acted with reckless disregard of its falsity, and must establish that by “clear and convincing proof.” Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 342, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 3008, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974) (emphasis added). This is a formidable task, and in the present case it is likely that the defendants would have to do no more to defeat it than to establish that a “political scientist in a major eastern university, whose scholarship and reputation as a liberal are well known” did indeed tell them what they printed. See St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U.S. 727, 731, 88 S.Ct. 1323, 1325, 20 L.Ed.2d 262 (1968).
—The difficulty of proving academic reputation, which the concurrence dwells upon at some length, Bork op. at 1005-08, is fully accounted for under current law by the fact that any failure of proof harms the plaintiffs rather than the defendant’s case — and harms it in particularly devastating fashion when the “clear and convincing evidence” standard applicable to public figures governs. If the statistical evidence were indeed as inconclusive as the concurrence portrays, the result would be precisely what the concurrence desires, a dismissal of the suit.
—The problem that “juries ... are much more likely than judges to find for the plaintiff in a defamation case,” id. at 1006, surely a reprehensible failing, has been met by the Supreme Court’s holding that “Qjjudges ... must independently decide whether the evidence in the record is sufficient to cross the constitutional threshold that bars the entry of any judgment that is not supported by clear and convincing proof of ‘actual malice.’ ” Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union, Inc., - U.S.-, 104 S.Ct. 1949, 1965, 80 L.Ed.2d 502 (1984).
It is difficult to see what valid concern remains that has not already been addressed by first amendment doctrine and that therefore requires some constitutional evolving — unless it be, quite plainly, the concern that political publicists, even with full knowledge of the falsity or recklessness of what they say, should be able to destroy private reputations at will.
When its lengthy “balancing” of the “totality of the circumstances” is complete, the concurrence ends up straddling two propositions: First, that the reasonable meaning of this statement is not that Oilman is poorly regarded within his profession. Second, that such an unquestionable libel is permitted in the course of political polemics. The first of these propositions distorts reality. I do not contest the principle that a politically disputatious context, like any element of context, can have some effect upon the properly understood meaning of a statement. If, for example, in the course of a diatribe against Marxist political thought Evans and Novak had written that “Oilman is an incompetent political scientist,” the reader might understand that this was merely a corollary of their opinion that Marxism is spinach. But here they did not say he was incompetent. They said that his professional peers regarded him as incompetent — and there is no way that conclusion can be understood to be a product of their econo-political opinions. In fact, they went even further out of their way to dissociate this factual statement from their opinions: they put it in the mouth of one whom they describe as (1) an expert on the subject of status in the political science profession, and (2) a political liberal, i.e., one whose view of Oilman would not be distorted on the basis of greatly differing political opinion. They were saying, in effect, “This is not merely our prejudiced view; it is the conclusion of an impartial and indeed sympathetic expert.” Try as they may, however, to convey to the world the fact that Oilman is poorly regarded in his profession, the concurrence insists upon calling it an opinion. It will not do.
Hence the second thread of argument which is subtly woven through the concur*1038ring opinion: In the field of political polemics, even statements that are fact rather than opinion must be excused because the reader “is most unlikely to regard [them] as to be trusted automatically.” Bork op. at 1010 (emphasis added). Once the reader is “alert[ed] ... that he is in the context of controversy and politics, and that what he reads does not even purport to be as balanced, objective, and fair-minded as ... what is contained in ... news columns,” id., he can expect libelous factual statements to be “more of the same,” id. And since he would be a fool to believe them, they are not actionable. I am not prepared to accept this novel view that since political debate is always discounted, a decent amount of defamation in that context is protected by the first amendment. Besides the fact that it is unprecedented,1 it is impracticable. Whereas there are some rational limits (if only vague ones) upon what sorts of statements can be considered opinion and hence nondefamatory — limits which are plainly exceeded here — there is really no mechanism to gauge how much defamation is a decent amount.
It is this “risk of judicial subjectivity,” id. at 997, rather than that which inheres in the unavoidable need in all libel cases to balance the “totality of the circumstances,” id. which troubles me. Beyond that, I may add, I distrust the more general risk of judicial subjectivity presented by the concurrence’s creative approach to first amendment jurisprudence. It is an approach which embraces “a continuing evolution of doctrine,” id. at 995, not merely as a consequence of thoughtful perception that old cases were decided wrongly at the time they were rendered (see, e.g., Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954)); and not even in response to a demonstrable, authoritatively expressed development of public values (see, e.g., Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 336 (1976) (plurality opinion)); but rather in reaction to judicially perceived “modern problems,” Bork op. at 995, which require “evolution of the law in accordance with the deepest rationale of the first amendment,” id. at 998.2 It seems to me that the identification of “modern problems” to be remedied is quintessentially legislative rather than judicial business— largely because it is such a subjective judgment; and that the remedies are to be sought through democratic change rather than through judicial pronouncement that the Constitution now prohibits what it did not prohibit before. The concurrence perceives a “modern problem” consisting of “a freshening stream of libel actions, *1039which ... may threaten the public and constitutional interest in free, and frequently rough, discussion,” id. at 993, and of claims for damages that are “quite capable of silencing political commentators forever,” id. at 995. Perhaps that perception is correct, though it is hard to square with the explosion of communications in general, and political commentary in particular, in this “Media Age.” But then again, perhaps those are right who discern a distressing tendency for our political commentary to descend from discussion of public issues to destruction of private reputations; who believe that, by putting some brake upon that tendency, defamation liability under existing standards not only does not impair but fosters the type of discussion the first amendment is most concerned to protect; and who view high libel judgments as no more than an accurate reflection of the vastly expanded damage that can be caused by media that are capable of holding individuals up to public obloquy from coast to coast and that reap financial rewards commensurate with that power. I do not know the answers to these questions, but I do know that it is frightening to think that the existence or nonexistence of a constitutional rule (the willfully false disparagement of professional reputation in the context of political commentary cannot be actionable) is to depend upon our ongoing personal assessments of such sociological factors. And not only is our cloistered capacity to identify “modern problems” suspect, but our ability to provide condign solutions through the rude means of constitutional prohibition is nonexistent. What a strange notion that the problem of excessive libel awards should be solved by permitting, in political debate, intentional destruction of reputation — rather than by placing a legislative limit upon the amount of libel recovery. It has not often been thought, by the way, that the press is among the least effective of legislative lobbyists.
In recent years, the Supreme Court confronted a similar assertion of a “modern problem” that required a new first amendment mutant. The omnipresence of the modern press, the popularity of “investigative reportage,” and the eagerness of many dissident groups actively to seek out press coverage, have with increasing frequency caused members of the press to be in possession of information regarding unlawful activity, necessary for the detection or prevention of crime. The Court was asked, as the concurrence asks us here, not to take a “wooden” or “mechanical” view of the first amendment, and to proclaim that in modern circumstances it prevents the subpoena of such information. Of course the Court declined. Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 33 L.Ed.2d 626 (1972). And of course the problem has not gone unaddressed. Many states have enacted “press shield” laws, see In re Roche, 381 Mass. 624, 411 N.E.2d 466, 474 n. 13 (1980), and the federal Justice Department has promulgated regulations, 28 C.F.R. § 50.10 (1983), which approach the issue in a much more calibrated fashion than judicial prohibition could achieve.
For the foregoing reasons, I join Judge Wald’s dissent on the professional status point.

. The concurrence asserts that it is “doing no more than following Supreme Court precedent” in the cases which protect opinion (Gertz) and hyperbole (Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Association v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6, 90 S.Ct. 1537, 26 L.Ed.2d 6 (1970), and Letter Carriers), since “part of the context here is the existence of a vigorous political controversy ... which conditions the way a reader understands the kind of charge that Evans and Novak related.” Bork op. at 1005. That is indeed part of the context; more important, it is only part of the concurrence's point, and not the part to which my present remarks are addressed. If alteration of the reader's understanding were the only point, the concurrence would be following traditional defamation analysis (as Gertz, Bresler and Letter Carriers did), as well as duplicating the majority opinion. However, the additional, "evolutionary" point has to do not with the reader’s understanding but with his expectations. He should, presumably, expect a reasonable amount of defamation in political controversy, and therefore it is nonactionable.

. In opposing such unguided "evolution” I am not in need of the concurrence's reminder that the fourth amendment must be applied to modern electronic surveillance, the commerce clause to trucks and the first amendment to broadcasting. Bork op. at 996. The application of existing principles to new phenomena— either new because they have not existed before or new because they have never been presented to a court before, see New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 268, 84 S.Ct. at 719 — is what I would call not "evolution" but merely routine elaboration of the law. What is under discussion here is not application of preexisting principles to new phenomena, but rather alteration of preexisting principles in their application to preexisting phenomena on the basis of judicial perception of changed social circumstances. The principle that the first amendment does not protect the deliberate impugning of character or reputation, in its application to the preexisting phenomenon of political controversy, is to be revised to permit “bumping" of some imprecisable degree because we perceive that libel suits are now too common and too successful.