Court Opinion

ID: 9584133
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:44:45.713065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:37.176123
License: Public Domain

ANN WALSH BRADLEY, J.
¶ 49. {dissenting). The question certified to this court is whether the statements of witnesses at legislative proceedings are entitled to absolute or conditional privilege for purposes of defamation law. To this certified question the majority answers an unpredictable "Maybe."
¶ 50. Although at the outset the majority opinion purports to hold that testimony at a legislative proceeding is entitled only to conditional privilege, the real holding of the case appears to be that it could be either *350absolute or conditional privilege, depending on the individual circumstances of each case. This appearance is underscored throughout the opinion when the majority ties its decision not to the general principles involved, but to the facts specific in this case.
¶ 51. In ignoring these principles, the analysis of the majority is misdirected and it arrives at an erroneous conclusion. Because an analysis of the policies underlying our adoption of absolute privilege for judicial proceedings demonstrates that those policies are equally applicable to declarants at legislative proceedings, I would apply absolute privilege to statements made at legislative proceedings for purposes of defamation law.
¶ 52. The majority analyzes this case as if our task is to decide where to draw a line between those legislative proceedings deserving of application of absolute privilege and those hearings sufficiently untrustworthy to deserve only conditional privilege. Admittedly, conducting such a demarcation would be a difficult task. It would require us to choose between the interests of society and the interests of the individual based on the circumstances of each proceeding. Depending on the nature of the government body, the parties to be examined, and the issues presented, the procedural requirements may vary dramatically. Testimony may be voluntary or subpoenaed, invited or unsolicited. Witnesses may be sworn or testify without oath. Inquiries may be by panel members, or comments accepted without specific direction.
¶ 53. The majority conducts just such an analysis of this case, focusing on the absence of procedural requirements affecting testimony before the Whitewater City Council and on the dearth of outside remedies available to the allegedly defamed individual. Ulti*351mately, the majority determines that the defendant may only be entitled to conditional privilege for her statements.
¶ 54. Both the analysis and the conclusion provided by the majority are unsatisfactory. The majority misses the mark because it analyzes the case not in terms of whether policies supporting absolute privilege exist, but rather in terms of whether certain safeguards such as subpoena, sworn testimony, and supervision exist. In doing so, the majority paints itself into an untenable and unworkable corner.1
*352¶ 55. The majority concludes that absolute privilege will not attach in this case because it lacks all of the procedural safeguards of the subpoena, sworn testimony, and supervision. Yet, the conclusion is untenable since the very cases relied upon by the majority in its analysis contradict this conclusion.
¶ 56. If a subpoena is an essential safeguard for absolute privilege, then how can the cases cited by the majority in which no subpoena was present be aligned with the majority's conclusion? See Spoehr v. Mittelstadt, 34 Wis. 2d 653, 150 N.W.2d 502 (1967) (extending absolute privilege to comments of counsel at preliminary conference); Bussewitz v. Wisconsin Teachers Ass'n, 188 Wis. 121, 205 N.W. 808 (1925) (applying absolute privilege to allegations in pleadings); Jennings v. Paine, 4 Wis. 372 [*358] (1855) (applying absolute privilege to statements of counsel).
¶ 57. If supervision is a critical safeguard to the grant of absolute privilege, then how can the majority justify this court's grant of absolute privilege in cases where there was no presiding officer to supervise the statement made? See Hartman v. Buerger, 71 Wis. 2d 393, 238 N.W.2d 505 (1976) (applying absolute privilege to defamatory telegram of county sheriff responding to character check as part of town board tavern licensing process); Werner v. Ascher, 86 Wis. 349, 56 N.W. 869 (1893) (holding absolute privilege probably applicable to unsolicited petition to town board to revoke liquor license); Larkin v. Noonan, 19 Wis. 93 [*82] (1865) (applying absolute privilege to statements in an unsolicited petition to the governor asking for the removal of a county sheriff).
¶ 58. If sworn testimony is necessary, then how can this court rationalize the grant of absolute privilege where the testimony is not sworn? See Schier v. *353Denny, 12 Wis. 2d 544, 107 N.W.2d 611 (1961) (granting absolute privilege to allegations made in a complaint against a real estate broker to State Real Estate Broker's Board); Schultz v. Strauss, 127 Wis. 325, 327, 106 N.W. 1066 (1906) (extending absolute privilege to statements made to district attorney acting in official capacity).
¶ 59. Indeed, there are cases within this jurisdiction in which absolute privilege has been applied and none of the essential safeguards espoused by the majority were present. See Hartman, 71 Wis. 2d at 398-400; Bergman v. Hupy, 64 Wis. 2d 747, 221 N.W.2d 898 (1974) (holding that statements to an assistant district attorney while seeking issuance of a criminal complaint are absolutely privileged); Schultz, 127 Wis. at 327.
¶ 60. Equally problematic, the majority opinion fails to acknowledge that we have already applied absolute privilege to legislative proceedings in a number of instances. Although Wisconsin courts have not addressed the specific question of whether witnesses should be given absolute privilege when testifying before a legislative body, we have acknowledged application of absolute privilege to town boards in Werner, DiMiceli v. Klieger, 58 Wis. 2d 359, 206 N.W.2d 184 (1973), Bergman and Hartman.2 Town boards, like city *354councils, are subsidiary legislative bodies constituted pursuant to authority delegated from the state legislature.
¶ 61. In Werner, the plaintiff claimed defamation based on written statements provided to a town board as part of a liquor license revocation proceeding. While the court disposed of the case on evidentiary grounds, the court noted that if the statement had been made only to the town board, it was probably absolutely privileged. See Werner, 86 Wis. at 351. Subsequent case law has relied upon this statement and further established the rule that town board liquor license proceedings are to be absolutely privileged. See DiMiceli, 58 Wis. 2d at 364 ("[S]uch absolute privilege has been extended to quasi-judicial proceedings, including. . .town board proceedings concerning a tavern license."); see also Bergman, 64 Wis. 2d at 751. In addition, in Hartman, this court explicitly refused to abrogate this application of absolute privilege, and applied it to a town board meeting to which a defamatory telegram had been submitted as evidence. See Hartman, 71 Wis. 2d at 397-400.
¶ 62. In each of these cases we have justified application of the privilege to the town board meeting on the grounds that the town board was determining matters in the public interest and thus was "quasi-judicial" in nature. In extending absolute privilege to such proceedings, we did not consider what alternate safeguards existed against defamation. Indeed, even had such safeguards been our primary concern, the presiding officer of a city council proceeding would seem to have equal, if not greater, control and supervi*355sion as officers of town boards in liquor license proceedings. Thus, the majority's conclusion that statements made to the Whitewater City Council, a municipal subsidiary of the legislature, are not privileged, appears inconsistent with our previous application of absolute privilege to other legislative subsidiaries.
¶ 63. Having pointed out these threshold inconsistencies, it is also significant that in none of the cases in which we have adopted absolute privilege has our decision been based on whether an otherwise defamatory statement was made under subpoena, while under oath, or while otherwise supervised. We have instead adopted absolute privilege based on our balancing of the important public policy interests at stake. Thus, any attempt to draw a line between the adoption of absolute or conditional privilege based on whether a witness is subpoenaed, sworn, or supervised3 while making comments ignores the fundamental policy reasons behind application of absolute privilege to defamation actions.
¶ 64. The absolute privilege affirmative defense is justified "where the interests and necessities of society require that the time and occasion of the publication or utterance, even though it be both false and malicious, shall protect the defamer from all liability to prosecution for the sake of the public good." Bacon v. Michigan Central R. Co., 33 N.W. 181, 183 (Mich. 1887). The interests and necessities referred to take three basic forms.
¶ 65. First, by eliminating the potential for personal liability of declarants, absolute privilege ensures *356that decision makers will be more fully informed. See Kensington Development Corp. v. Israel, 142 Wis. 2d 894, 900, 419 N.W.2d 241 (1988). Second, absolute privilege eliminates the chilling effect of defamation law and ensures that citizens will not be discouraged from participating in the fundamental democratic process by fear of later suit. As we have noted in the past, "If parties are shadowed by the fear that by some mistake as to facts or some excess of zeal, or by some error. . .they may be subjected to harassing litigation. . .they may well feel that justice is too dearly bought and that it is safest to abandon its pursuit...." Bussewitz v. Wisconsin Teachers' Association, 188 Wis. 121, 124-25, 205 N.W. 808, 810 (1925).
¶ 66. Finally, absolute privilegé encourages the free expression of ideas as part of the political process. See DeSantis v. Employees Passaic County Welfare Ass'n, 568 A.2d 565, 567 (N.J. App. 1990). Accordingly, the issue of whether this privilege should be applied to witnesses before legislative bodies requires a determination of whether the risk of uncompensated reputational harm is outweighed by the public policy of encouraging citizen participation in such proceedings.
¶ 67. Where the balance tips in favor of the societal interests, absolute privilege, as set out in Restatement (Second) of Torts § 590A (1977) provides that:
A witness is absolutely privileged to publish defamatory matter as part of a legislative proceeding in which he is testifying or in communications preliminary to the proceedings, if the matter has some relation to the proceeding.
Such statements are subject only to the procedural safeguards that they be made in a context to which the *357privilege has been applied, and the substantive safeguard that the statement be relevant to the matter being considered. See Snow v. Koeppl, 159 Wis. 2d 77, 81, 464 N.W.2d 215 (Ct. App. 1990). To promote the public interest, relevancy is to be liberally construed. See id.
¶ 68. Despite the majority's contention to the contrary, the liberal relevancy test is not a superficial doctrine providing no protection to the allegedly defamed. Statements which have no relation to the issues under discussion do not receive the benefit of the privilege. Indeed, this court has explicitly relied upon the relevancy requirement to reject arguments that a conditional privilege was necessary to prevent hearings from becoming "forum[s] for unfettered character assassination." See Hartman, 71 Wis. 2d at 400 (rejecting arguments based on Melton v. Slonsky, 504 P.2d 1288, 1291 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1973)).
¶ 69. In rejecting the "relate to" requirement of absolute privilege, the majority asserts its view that accusations of pedophilia, prostitution or purveyance of pornography against a local resident sufficiently "relate to" a hearing on municipal beautification to invoke the privilege. I disagree with the majority's conclusion that "any court's interpretation would almost certainly" find that calling a neighbor a pedophile relates to the issue of municipal beautification. Majority op. at 338. Not only is the conclusion incorrect, but such a blanket assertion does a disservice to the courts in this state that may not be inclined to embrace the majority's conclusion that pedophilia relates to municipal beautification.
¶ 70. Where statements are relevant to issues arising in a judicial proceeding, this court has recognized the importance of protecting the societal interest *358in obtaining full disclosure of facts and in hearing arguments from interested parties. See Bussewitz, 188 Wis. at 127-28. Our recognition of this societal interest is equally, if not more, applicable to proceedings before legislative entities.
¶ 71. Judicial proceedings resolve questions of rights between a small number of parties and are protected by absolute privilege. Quasi-judicial proceedings also receive the privilege, in part because the societal interests upon which absolute privilege is based are even more forceful where a quasi-judicial proceeding is deciding between the public interest and a private interest. See Schier, 12 Wis. 2d at 548.
¶ 72. This same justification argues in favor of applying absolute privilege to legislative hearings. Legislative entities are the arbiters of the public interest, after input and argument through the democratic process. Cf. Schier, 12 Wis. 2d at 548. The very interests that make absolute privilege necessary for communications made in judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings are also essential to the legislative process. The legislature must be fully informed to enact suitable legislation. See Yip v. Pagano, 606 F. Supp. 1566, 1571 (D. N.J. 1985).
¶ 73. This is true regardless of the size or scope of authority of the particular legislative body in question. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 590 cmt.c (1977); Kelly v. Daro, 118 P.2d 37, 38 (Cal. App. 1941). Whether the declarant is speaking before the state legislature, a county board, or a committee of a municipal council, the democratic process requires an atmosphere of openness wherein citizen participants can petition their government officials without fear of being forced to defend their statements later in court. See Webster v. Sun Company, Inc., 731 F.2d 1, 4 (D.C. Cir. 1984). The *359majority's holding does not create such an open and democratic environment.
¶ 74. Compounding the majority's error in refusing to apply absolute privilege is the majority's advocacy of an unworkable frame of analysis. The opinion is unworkable since it provides little guidance to courts and its result impedes the democratic process. By applying conditional privilege to this case and refusing even to elucidate a standard of application for future cases, the majority leaves the trial court without direction as to how to apply absolute or conditional privilege, except on a case-by-case basis. The majority also leaves open the possibility that a citizen who might otherwise offer information on important local issues will remain silent because of a fear of reprisal.
¶ 75. Under conditional privilege, the target of a declarant's comments at a legislative hearing may respond by filing suit for defamation. As recently noted in the cover story of the ABA Journal:
Increasingly, Americans who speak out in opposition to private development plans before local zoning boards, testify at school board meetings or circulate petitions to their elected officials are finding themselves in court, defending themselves against lawsuits by developers, landowners. . .claiming to have been defamed or otherwise injured by public comment.
See Alexandra D. Lowe, The Price of Speaking Out, 82 A.B.A. J. 48, 48-49, Sept., 1996.
¶ 76. Regardless of whether suph suits are legitimate grievances or SLAPP suits (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), the possibility of a multimillion dollar lawsuit may chill democratic participation and keep citizens out of committee rooms. *360A grant of only conditional privilege to witnesses at legislative proceedings impedes the workings of our democratic process:
"[B]oth individuals and groups are now being routinely sued in multimillion-dollar damage actions for such "All-American" political activities as circulating a petition, writing a letter to the editor, testifying at a public hearing, reporting violations of law, lobbying for legislation, peacefully demonstrating, or otherwise attempting to influence government action."
See id. at 48 (quoting George W. Pring & Penelope Canan, SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out (1996)).
¶ 77. Defamation suit defendants and observers of those suits may choose in the future not to be involved and to remain silent. The more emotional energy and financial capital expended to defend such suits, the less incentive or energy there is to contest the underlying project. Accordingly, to promote the policies that ensure democratic participation and a free and frank discussion of issues, absolute privilege should protect statements made in legislative proceedings from the threat or reality of a defamation lawsuit.
¶ 78. Foreign jurisdictions also do not provide the majority analysis with sufficient cover from the legitimate policy objectives just discussed. Citing four cases from foreign jurisdictions, the majority proclaims that "a significant body of case law has developed to support the position that witnesses who supply voluntary testimony to a legislative body are entitled only to a conditional immunity." See majority op. at 345. While a grant of conditional privilege may be the ultimate holding of a very limited number of cases cited by the *361majority in support of its result, their number is far less than the "significant body of cases" claimed by the majority. More importantly, the reasoning they employ is contrary to Wisconsin's established privilege jurisprudence and unsupportive of the majority's rationale.
¶ 79. In Adserv Corp. v. Lincecum, 385 So. 2d 432 (La. Ct. App. 1980), the court applied conditional privilege to a legislative hearing only after acknowledging that Louisiana, unlike Wisconsin, applies only conditional privilege to statements at judicial proceedings. In Bell v. Horton, 669 N.E.2d 546 (Ohio Ct. App. 1995), the court did not even consider whether statements of legislative witnesses were subpoenaed or sworn, and ignored the issue presented here by instead applying conditional privilege based on statements made to a public officer with the authority to take action in the public interest.
¶ 80. Wright v. Lathrop, 21 N.E. 963 (Mass. 1889) was resolved in a similar manner, with the court refusing to label as a witness an unsubpoenaed declar-ant at a legislative committee meeting. That court also applied conditional privilege to statements made to public officers in the public interest. Finally, in Fiore v. Rogero, 144 So. 2d 99 (Fla. Ct. App. 1962), the court did apply conditional privilege to statements of witnesses at legislative hearings. However, in taking this action, the Fiore court failed to consider and balance the public interest in unconstrained statements and the individual's interest in protection of reputation.
¶ 81. Thus, the reasoning employed by the foreign cases around which the majority rallies does not align with this court's prior focus on the. public policy merits of adopting absolute or conditional privilege. Accordingly, we should not then deviate from our prior *362case law and adopt the majority's new framework of analysis.
¶ 82. In addition, the majority's extensive evaluation of the alternative remedies available to an allegedly defamed individual misses the point that absolute privilege was created to address. Admittedly, the application of absolute privilege to defamation actions arising out of legislative proceedings, just like the application of absolute privilege to defamation actions arising out of judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings, results in a limitation of remedies to the allegedly defamed in those proceedings. By focusing on the alternative remedies offered by the plaintiffs in response to a question at oral arguments, the majority obfuscates the proper focus of inquiry.
¶ 83. When absolute privilege is applied to a proceeding, it is because the public interest in disclosure of statements at those proceedings outweighs the private interest in protecting one's reputation. Although tort remedies may still be available to the alleged victim, the public interest in preserving participation and exposing the truth trumps suits for defamation. The individual's right of redress is thus purposefully subservient to the public interest protected by the privilege, and the absence of alternative remedies is irrelevant.
¶ 84. The concurring opinion, like the majority, espouses conditional privilege, but fails to engage in a policy discussion weighing these competing public interests. Like the majority, the concurrence fails to address the invidious effects of conditional privilege upon the democratic process. Like the majority, the concurrence fails to acknowledge that we have previously applied absolute privilege to witnesses in legislative proceedings and that the application of *363absolute privilege to legislative witnesses is consistent with our prior case law.
¶ 85. More importantly, it is noteworthy that the concurrence does not consider the full scope of its own argument. If this court is to apply conditional privilege to the situation presented here based on a perceived threat to America's "ordered society" by the tabloid media, how then can the majority not agree to abrogate all applications of absolute privilege in situations, including judicial proceedings where defamatory statements might be uttered? The arguments of the concurrence could be cited as support for eliminating absolute privilege currently enjoyed by parties to a judicial proceeding or the privilege accorded legislators and city council members at legislative hearings. Legislators have far greater access to the media than has an individual homeowner commenting at a city council meeting. Yet, this court endorses the protections of absolute privilege for legislators and city council members at legislative meetings but allows no such protection for witnesses at such meetings. If indeed the tabloid media is going to rule our law, why should it not then rule it uniformly?
¶ 86. Further attacking the dissent for using "cold" legal analysis in its approach to this question of law, the concurrence fails to cite any authority in support of its conclusion. Instead, it substitutes hypotheticals for legal analysis.
¶ 87. After raising the specter of tabloid journalism run amok, the concurrence attacks this dissent as "fail[ing] to discuss how allowing an utterly false, malicious, and destructive accusation furthers" the three policy justifications for absolute privilege. Concurrence at 347-48. In making this assertion, the concurrence missteps in resting its argument on the extreme case, *364an alleged statement that is by definition defamatory, rather than looking to the value of unfettered discourse.
¶88. I agree that allowing such a statement, with the full prior knowledge of all concerned that the statement is "utterly false," would do a disservice. However, neither this court, nor the parties to this case, have the benefit of such prescience or the luxury of such a narrow perspective. As discussed above, we must instead be concerned with the effects our adoption of conditional privilege will have on the democratic process, decision makers and free expression, where there are witnesses who would comment in a truthful manner but for fear of a meritless suit for defamation.
¶ 89. Finally, without explanation and again without offering any legal analysis in support of the assertion, the concurrence offers a sweeping assertion that the authority relied upon by the dissent is "dubious." Apparently resting its "dubious" authority conclusion upon the age of the case, the concurrence cites Hartman as the lone example of its sweeping assertion. Hartman is of a 1976 vintage. If the concurrence applied the same reasoning to the cases cited in the majority opinion, almost one-half of the majority's cited authority would be deemed "dubious." Hartman and the other cases cited in this dissent are the controlling legal precedent of this court until they are overruled by the court — an action not taken by the majority today.
¶ 90. This court is asked to decide whether statements of witnesses at legislative proceedings are entitled to absolute or conditional privilege for purposes of defamation law. The majority focuses on procedural safeguards and the right to redress. In applying absolute privilege to judicial and quasi-judi*365cial proceedings, Wisconsin courts have never held the existence of alternative safeguards to be determinative. The majority's concern for the right of redress is no different than arguments rejected by this court each time it has adopted or applied absolute privilege to defamation actions. Because I believe that adopting absolute privilege for legislative witnesses is consistent with our prior decisions and supported by public policy, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 91. I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson and Justice Donald W. Steinmetz join this opinion.

 The majority attacks this dissent as being "myopic" in its interpretation of the majority opinion. In developing this attack, the majority asserts at footnote 7 that its conclusions are based on a weighing of public policy and not on the presence of alternative procedural safeguards such as the subpoena power, potential supervision, or sworn testimony. However, proclaiming in a footnote that the majority analysis is really a policy discussion does not make it so.
The majority's repeated focus on potential alternative protections throughout the opinion, and offer of statements such as, "[d]ue to the lack of procedural safeguards in this case, however, we conclude that the public policy favoring a citizen's right to redress outweighs the policy concerned with discouraging. a citizen's participation in the democratic process," contradicts the majority's footnote proclamation. Majority op. at n.7. The strength of the public policy argument for protecting an individual's reputation from "scurrilous attack," to use the majority's terms, is not now, and never will be, dependent upon the presence or absence of alternative protections.
Reasonable judges may differ on the conclusion of a policy debate. However, such an analysis should be conducted based on the independent merits of the opposing policy positions, not on whether the existence of alternative protections obviates the need for such a discussion.

 This court has noted that the "[absolute] privilege has been extended to judicial officers, legislative proceedings, and to certain governmental executive officers." Zinda v. Louisiana Pacific Corp., 149 Wis. 2d 913, 440 N.W.2d 548 (1989) (finding communications between employer and employees concerning ex-employee's dismissal only conditionally privileged); see, e.g., Yip v. Pagano, 606 F. Supp. 1566 (D. N.J. 1985); DeSantis v. Employees Passaic County Welfare Ass'n, 568 A.2d 565 (N.J. App. 1990); North Coast Cable Ltd. Partnership v. Hanneman, *354648 N.E.2d 875 (Ohio Ct. App. 1994); Jennings v. Cronin, 389 A.2d 1183 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1978); Logans Super Markets, Inc. v. McCalla, 343 S.W.2d 892 (Tenn. 1961).

 Examples of such supervision include a member of the legislative body asking specific questions of the witness, or rules limiting the scope of a witness's comments.