Court Opinion

ID: 9614043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:21:51.834004+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:03:02.253300
License: Public Domain

FIDEL, Judge,
specially concurring:
The majority neither adopts nor rejects the trial court’s finding that the challenged publications were substantially true. However, in disposing of the cross-appeal, the majority upholds the trial court’s denial of Rule 11 sanctions for the reason, among others, “that Heuisler presented a legally defensible argument that the report of his conviction for assaulting a police officer was not substantially true.” In support of this conclusion, the majority cites Read v. Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., 167 Ariz. 241, 805 P.2d 1062 (App.1990), a recent decision by this court.
I write separately because I approach this issue differently than the majority and because I cannot join in endorsing Read to illustrate the law of substantial truth.
A defendant in a defamation suit need not “establish the literal truth of the precise statement made.” Fendler v. Phoenix Newspapers Inc., 130 Ariz. 475, 479, 636 P.2d 1257, 1261 (1981) (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 581(A) comment f (1977)). Summary judgment for defendant is proper when “the gist [or] sting” of the charge is substantially true. Fendler, 130 Ariz. at 479, 636 P.2d at 1261 (quoting Kurata v. Los Angeles News Publishing Co., 4 Cal.App.2d 224, 227, 40 P.2d 520, 522 (1935)); Liberty Lobby, Inc. v. Dow Jones & Co., Inc., 838 F.2d 1287, 1296 (D.C.Cir. 1988).
Read illustrates these principles misapplied. A newspaper inaccurately reported that Read, a primary candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, was convicted of the misdemeanor of “firing a gun after a motorist accidentally leaned on her car horn.” The facts were more complex. Read followed the driver to her home, con*286fronted the driver and her passenger, and displayed a weapon in the escalating encounter as the women’s friends and family rallied round. A struggle followed, the gun was fired—apparently by accident, and Read was indeed convicted of a misdemean- or. His crime, however, was not “firing a gun,” but “exhibiting a weapon not in self-defense.” This distinction had substance enough, the Read court found, to preclude summary judgment and require a jury trial.
I disagree. First Amendment freedoms are ill-served by defamation trials over trifles. “Erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate, and ... it must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the ‘breathing space’ that they ‘need ... to survive.’ ” New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 271-72, 84 S.Ct. 710, 721, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964) (quoting N.A.A.C.P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 433, 83 S.Ct. 328, 338, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (1963)). The Read articles may have been inaccurate in detail, but their sting—that a congressional candidate was a hothead who had brandished a gun in a traffic dispute—was substantially true.
The same may be said in Heuisler’s case. Heuisler, likewise a seeker of public office,1 was not convicted of assault on a police officer, but of disorderly conduct in an incident that included a physical confrontation with the police. The concept of substantial truth is commodious enough for this discrepancy. Here, as in Read, the sting was substantially true.
The majority disposes of Heuisler’s claim on the ground that Heuisler proved no malice. I agree. I would also affirm, however, on the simpler ground that the challenged publications were substantially true. The Supreme Court has acknowledged that the malice standard, “knowing or reckless disregard,” is “not always easy of ascertainment.” Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy, 401 U.S. 265, 276, 91 S.Ct. 621, 627, 28 L.Ed.2d 35 (1970). Malice discovery is often extensive, and motion practice frequently complex. The courts might expeditiously end meritless cases and spare parties the cost and delay of malice inquiry by applying the substantial truth standard liberally to provide breathing space for such minor inaccuracies as this and the Read case display.2
To conclude that a publication is substantially true, however, is not to conclude that a plaintiff has frivolously claimed otherwise. Summary judgment serves the important function in defamation cases of “avoidance of long and expensive litigation productive of nothing,” Washington Post Co. v. Keogh, 365 F.2d 965, 968 (D.C.Cir. 1966). Yet even in awarding summary judgment, the courts may recognize the frustration of those whose claims they constitutionally reject. See Gertz, 418 U.S. at 342, 94 S.Ct. at 3008 (“Some tension necessarily exists between the need for a vigorous and uninhibited press and the legitimate interest in redressing wrongful injury.”) Although the inaccuracies Heuisler complains of were too insubstantial for this lawsuit to continue, they were inaccuracies nonetheless, and Heuisler should not be punished for seeking recourse in the courts.
Thus, I join the majority in affirming the denial of attorney’s fees, as I join the majority in affirming the finding that Heuisler failed to prove malice. Unlike the majority, however, and without reliance on Read, I would also affirm the trial court’s finding of substantial truth.

. See Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 345, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 3010, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974)— (Those who seek governmental office "have voluntarily exposed themselves to increased risk of injury from defamatory falsehood____”)

. In Read, the defendant apparently attempted to avoid contesting the more complex malice issue by first seeking summary judgment on the simpler ground of substantial truth.