Court Opinion

ID: 9861493
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:06:52.962021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:28:34.156103
License: Public Domain

KAUFMAN, Acting P. J.,
Concurring and Dissenting. — Somewhat reluctantly,1 I concur in the opinion and judgment except insofar as it holds that a discriminatory violation of a newspaper’s constitutional right to freedom of the press gives rise to a direct cause of action for damages outside the parameters of recognized tort law and independent of the statutory law dealing with unlawful restraints of trade and unfair business practices. Not a single case or authority so holding is cited for that novel proposition, and the authorities that are cited in support of it are neither compelling nor persuasive.
*858Even if the majority were correct that the provision in the California Constitution guaranteeing freedom of the press (art. I, § 2, subd. (a)) is self-executing, that would not automatically and necessarily result in the conclusion that a violation of that right gives rise to a cause of action for damages. Self-executing means no more than that the constitutional right will be enforced without enabling legislation. The fact that a constitutional provision is self-executing does not establish the remedies that are available for its enforcement. Injunctive or declaratory relief may be available to the exclusion of money damages.
Moreover, it is clear that the free press provision of the California Constitution is not self-execúting, at least in the sense that its violation gives right to a direct cause of action for damages. Subdivision (a) of section 2 of article I provides: “Every person may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of this right. A law may not restrain or abridge liberty of speech or press.” (Italics added.) A constitutional provision may be regarded as self-executing “if the nature and extent of the right conferred and the liability imposed are fixed by the Constitution itself, so that they can be determined by an examination and construction of its terms .. ..” (Taylor v. Madigan (1975) 53 Cal.App.3d 943, 951 [126 Cal. Rptr. 376]; accord; Chesney v. Byram (1940) 15 Cal.2d 460, 462 [101 P.2d 1106]; Flood v. Riggs (1978) 80 Cal.App.3d 138, 154 [145 Cal. Rptr. 573].) Obviously, the language “a law may not restrain or abridge liberty of ... press” falls a bit short of fixing the “extent of the right conferred” and, a fortiori, “the liability imposed.” Indeed, inasmuch as the prohibition is against abridgement of the right by “[a] law,” it is problematical whether the constitutional provision has any application to the conduct of nongovernmental entities.
The last observation is pertinent also to the fundamental distinction between the case at bench and the right of privacy cases cited by the majority. The initiative constitutional amendment to section 1 of article I of the California Constitution, adding privacy to the enumerated inalienable rights,*
2 had a unique “legislative” history that indicated the *859provision was meant to protect the right of privacy against unlawful intrusions by either governmental or private entities and was intended to be enforceable without more. (See White v. Davis (1975) 13 Cal.3d 757, 773-776 [120 Cal.Rptr. 94, 533 P.2d 222]; Porten v. University of San Francisco (1976) 64 Cal.App.3d 825, 829 [134 Cal.Rptr. 839].) The courts in both the White and Porten decisions relied entirely on that unique “legislative” history in determining that the provision establishing an inalienable right to privacy was self-executing and, apparently in Porten, that its violation gives rise to a direct cause of action for damages. Thus those decisions constitute no authority for a damage action based on article I, section 2, subdivision (a). Neither does the observation in Emerson v. J. F. Shea Co. (1978) 76 Cal.App.3d 579, 591 [143 Cal.Rptr. 170], that in White the court indicated that the constitutional amendment adding privacy to the list of inalienable rights was intended to be self-executing.
Civil Code section 3333 is not a substantive statute; it merely prescribes the general measure of damages in tort cases. Civil Code section 1708 which provides that every person is bound to abstain from injuring the person or property of another or infringing any of his rights, states a general principle of law, but it hardly provides support for the adoption of the novel legal proposition that a violation of subdivision (a) of section 2 of article I of the California Constitution gives rise to a direct cause of action for damages outside the parameters of recognized tort law and independent of the statutory law governing unlawful restraints on trade and unfair business practices.
A petition for a rehearing was denied June 16, 1982, and respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied August 18, 1982.

My reluctance is based on my agreement with the majority (see majority opn., ante, pp. 847-848, fn. 14) that this case really involves nothing more than a commercial dispute between two entities engaged in the newspaper business and my regret that plain-*858plaintiff has been successful in importing into the dispute the revered constitutional right of freedom of the press. Although I find it difficult to argue with the logic of the discussion of constitutional issues in the majority opinion, I have the uneasy feeling that by right this case should not, and in fact does not, involve the grave constitutional concerns confronted in the majority opinion.

The language of article I, section 1, of the California Constitution is: “All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.”