Court Opinion

ID: 9629720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:47:49.652913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:22.702616
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, J.
I dissent. That often there are quarrels among town residents, and that passions of election politics sometimes run high, hardly should shock this court. Almost never, I believe, should judges attempt to monitor those conflicts.
The majority opinion’s third paragraph summarizes the 1970-1971 “turmoil and strife” in Seal Beach. The version presented, however, is bowdlerized. For more picturesque accounts the appendix that counsel filed with the Court of Appeal on January 14, 1977, must be examined; e.g., the lengthy declarations of Thomas McNew (“two months of *687sensational hearings involving ... a Seal Beach dance hall. . . found to be involved in teen-age drug and other abuses”) and Charlotte Shuman (“Hundreds of concerned citizens turned out in force to attend council meetings for many weeks”); and see too plaintiff’s lengthy flyer “It’s Your Decision,” with its paragraphs on “Hell, Hate and Harrangue.”
The words my colleagues find most offensive are “blackmail” and “extorted.” They were used on November 23, 1970, at a city council meeting, by a council member who here declares that “Councilman Gummere joined me in this characterization” and “No one present denied my statement.” They then appeared in the second column on an inside page of the February 1971 issue of the College Park News, in a two-and-a-half column article entitled “How Much Can the Citizens of Seal Beach Stand?”. And during subsequent weeks that article apparently was photocopied and distributed as a one-page flyer.
For possible future reference I append the article to this opinion (and I am sorry that portraying its truly political and nondefamatory flavor more accurately, by photocopying instead of printing, seems unfeasible here).
The California Constitution declares, “Every person may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of this right.” (Art. I, § 2.) Was there “abuse” here? I think not, given the turmoil and strife and the long-built-up heat of the local election campaign. I have no precise image of the “ordinary” or “average” reader, but I do not accept the majority’s conclusion that a jury should decide “whether an ordinary reader would have understood the article as a factual assertion charging Hogard with crime.” Nor would I assign to a jury the question whether “defendant either deliberately cast his statements in an equivocal fashion in the hope of insinuating a defamatory import to the reader, or . . . knew or acted in reckless disregard of whether his words would be interpreted by the average reader as defamatory statements of fact.”
That kind of jurying may be appropriate for noncampaign settings. Those prescriptions should not be used, however, as formulas that permit judges and juries in cases like this to chill the speech of vehemently controversial electioneering.
Finally, the majority accord no significance to the fact that the words claimed to be defamatory seem first to have been used by an elective *688official at an official meeting. Is it conceivable that the criticized article could be adjudged libelous had it stated, “This is the same combine which, as Councilman Holden observed at the November 23d meeting, extorted by blackmail, etc.?”1
APPENDIX HOW MUCH CAN THE CITIZENS OF SEAL BEACH STAND! by Albert Del Guercio, Vice President of Good Government Group of Seal Beach The citizens of Seal Beach finally had their day in court and the Robertson-Baum-Fuhrman-Hogard combine was dealt a mortal blow. Superior Court Judge Van Tatenhove, after days of hearings, issued an order requiring the recalcitrant councilmen—Baum, Fuhrman and Hogard to set a date for the recall of Fuhrman. In so doing the Judge found that Jody Weir, the City Clerk, had properly performed the duties of her office in certifying as valid and sufficient the recall signatures of over 50% of Fuhrman’s councilmanic district. It overruled Bentson’s inadvisable contention that the law required 25% of the signatures of the voters of the entire City. Notwithstanding the favorable court decision, the combine continued to deny the citizens their rights, and instructed Bledsoe (Robertson’s former attorney) to file a notice of appeal. This would have had the effect of stalling the recall for months if not a year. This was too much for Councilman Lloyd Gummere to stomach. Notwithstanding his long record of outstanding public service he had been harassed, maligned and his motives impugned by the combine. He had had his fill of the Hogard-Fuhrman-Baum-Robertson daily chicanery and machinations. So at the January 4th meeting of the City Council it was announced that he had reached an agreement with the combine whereby he would resign as councilman and the combine would drop the appeal and set a date for the Fuhrman recall election and the election of his successor. The date of the recall election was thereafter set for March 30, 1971. Thus as a result of the sacrifice of the venerable senior councilman, the people of Seal Beach will be permitted to exercise its sovereignty over its public servants. But it will be difficult to find a man to fill Mr. Gummere’s (affectionately known as “Pop”) place. The combination had needlessly spent over fourteen thousand dollars of the taxpayers money to fight Fuhrman’s battle and to frustrate the will of the people. In addition, the combine by its unjustified action compelled the Good Government Group to raise over twelve thousand dollars in legal fees to fight the people’s battle. The money is coming from small *689donations from thousands of concerned citizens of Seal Beach. This is the price we had to pay in order to oust irresponsible men from office and restore honest and responsible government in the City. The day the combine compelled the resignation of one of its most respected and beloved councilman to insure the people their rights, will go down as a day of infamy. This is the same combine which extorted by blackmail $100,000 from the R & B Development Company. For its thirty pieces of silver the combine agreed to forgo its concern for the City’s ecology, pollution and strain on our sanitation system that Baum had so sanctimoniously raised during his campaign and in City Council meetings. For economical reasons the R & B Development Company submitted to the “holdup” and agreed to drop its multi-million dollar suit against the City so that it could begin the construction of apartment buildings in the downtown section of the City. But the combine will pay for its infamy and lose its stranglehold on the City. Notices of intention to recall have been served on Baum and Hogard and circulation of petitions have commenced. For the first time the Fuhrman-Hogard-Baum combine have dropped their arrogance and are running scared. They were given an opportunity in the recall notice to answer specific charges of misconduct and illegal activities. They elected not to do so but instead chose to set up a smoke screen by falsely claiming to have benefited the City of Seal Beach during their incumbency. They enshrined themselves in a cloak of innocence and humility that ill becomes them. From now to the date of the election you will hear a lot of political hog-wash from this combine. It appears that Robertson will have to move elsewhere to impose his will on an elective body.

The “Answer of Thomas R. Hogard” that the majority opinion describes in its first footnote, which preceded petitioner’s allegedly libelous article, seems to have been exactly what its title implies; i.e., plaintiff’s answer to protests at the November 23d council meeting and elsewhere. Does he not say, in effect, that he engaged not in what council colleagues loosely described as blackmail and extortion but rather in “brinkmanship” and “persuasion.” (The quotation marks are his.) The legitimate inference is that, until the article- as a whole began to have an observable impact on votes, he knew very well that he had been charged with neither criminal blackmail nor criminal extortion.
Compare Mayor George Moscone’s recent comment at the July 10th meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, as reported on page 1 of the S. F. Chronicle, July 11, 1978:. “ ‘There’s never been a greater hijack in the history of the board,’ said the mayor.” (Italics added.)