Court Opinion

ID: 9677114
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:43:55.59065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:53.953964
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
concurring.
There is another reason why the appellant, Prewitt, was entitled to a directed verdict. Historically, not every civil action instituted without probable cause was subject upon dismissal to a countersuit. Liability was confined to “exceptional cases in which special injury or grievance is found to exist,” such as “civil actions which are recognized as quasi-criminal in character, or which involve an interference with the person, as in the case of proceedings in lunacy, contempt, bastardy, juvenile delinquency, arrest under civil process, or binding over to keep the peace.” Prosser and Keeton on Torts, 5th ed., p. 890 (1984). See Harter v. Lewis Stores, Ky., 240 S.W.2d 86 (1951), cited in Raine v. Drasin, Ky., 621 S.W.2d 895 (1981). The concept of what constitutes “special injury” was expanded in Raine v. Drasin, supra, to include damage to the professional reputation of a physician arising out of a complaint charging medical malpractice. The question here is whether the harm alleged *898by the appellees in the present lawsuit falls within the penumbra of Raine v. Drasin.
The answer to this question turns on whether the accusation in the allegedly unjustified prior civil proceedings carried with it “defamatory” implication. Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 681. Raine v. Drasin gives this term a broad interpretation as applied to the charge of medical malpractice against physicians, but their professional reputation is, perhaps, uniquely vulnerable. Certainly, not every occupation is such that the charge of negligence on a single occasion, or similar act civilly actionable but not necessarily morally reprehensible, is sufficient for the jury to conclude “reputation ... [has] been ‘assailed.’ ” 621 S.W.2d at 900. We should not extend the concept of defamation in Raine v. Drasin to every case where a person has been sued, simply because the suit is based on an act occurring in the course of one’s occupation.
The courts have fashioned other more appropriate relief against attorneys for the victims of a groundless lawsuit where they cannot prove a cause of action for the wrongful use of civil proceedings because they have not suffered from the kind of harm described in Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 681: specifically, a Rule 11 motion or a motion for appellate relief under our CR 78. Within the terms of these rules, a lawyer who initiates or pursues a groundless lawsuit is not free from penalty, nor is his victim left without appropriate remedy.
We should not extend the parameters of claims for damage to professional reputation so broadly as to include the allegations of this complaint against these appellees. As explained in Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 681, Comment c, p. 470:
“In the ordinary ease, however, the civil proceedings are in no way defamatory to the person against whom they are brought unless the matters alleged as their basis are themselves defamatory. ... In a word, the test is whether the defendant’s pleadings are such that if not protected by the privilege of a litigant (see § 587) they would be actionable under the rules governing recovery for defamation.”
The complaint filed by Prewitt on behalf of Willoughby against the appellees did not refer to their occupation and did not damage them in their reputation under “the rules governing recovery for defamation.” Id.
COMBS, J., joins.