Court Opinion

ID: 9529520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:51:39.431024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:49.954705
License: Public Domain

Andersen, J.
(dissenting)—I agree with the majority that the trial court's instruction 10, the burden of proof instruction given to the jury in this case, is misleading and erroneous because it assigns simultaneous burdens of proving falsity to plaintiffs and defendants. I also agree with the majority that the same instruction is misleading and erroneous because it assigns simultaneous burdens of proving the existence, nonexistence and abuse of a qualified privilege. I disagree with the majority's conclusion, however, that these two errors are harmless. I would conclude that the burden of proof instruction's totally erroneous statements regarding qualified privilege, coupled with its falsity error, constitute prejudicial error and would remand the case for a new trial before a properly instructed jury.
As I perceive them, the rules regarding the burden of proving a privileged communication in a defamation case are as follows. The defendant has the burden of establishing a privileged publication by proving a recognized public or private interest that would justify the utterance of the *539words.1 Whether or not a privilege exists at all is an issue of law for the court to decide.2 If the facts are in dispute, then the jury will be called upon to consider the evidence and pass upon the issues thus raised.3 It is for the court, however, to decide whether the facts found by the jury made the publication privileged or to instruct the jury as to what facts they must find to hold the publication privileged.4 Once the existence of the privilege is established, the burden is upon the plaintiff to prove that it has been abused by excessive publication, by use of the occasion for an improper purpose or by lack of belief or grounds for belief in the truth of what is said.5
In this case, the court did observe these rules in part when it instructed the jury as follows:
You are instructed that the Defendant has a qualified privilege to publish and distribute the articles to Teamster Union members.
In order to overcome that privilege, Plaintiff must show by clear and convincing evidence that the Defendant abused its privilege, and that the Defendant knew the statements were false, or acted in reckless disregard of whether the statements were true or not.
Reckless conduct is defined in Instruction No. 16.[6]
The trial court's instruction 10, however, is inconsistent and contradictory with the foregoing correct statement of the law. It reads:
The plaintiff has the burden of proving each element of the cause of action for defamation, which are as *540follows:
1. That the defendant made false statements of fact concerning the plaintiff.
2. That the defendant made this statement to a third party without privilege to do so.
3. That the defendant was at fault, amounting to at least negligence.
Plaintiff has the burden of proving that the defendant made one or more statements alleged by the plaintiff, that the plaintiff suffered damages as alleged and that the statements were a proximate cause of said damages.
If the plaintiff fails to prove any one of the foregoing elements, then your verdict must be for the defendant on plaintiff's claim for defamation. If, however, plaintiff proves his case, the defendant has the burden of proving the following defenses:
1. That the statements of fact were substantially true; truth is a complete defense to an action for defamation.
2. That the defendant had a qualified privilege to make these statements.[7]
It is impossible to know what effect inconsistent or contradictory instructions may have upon a jury.8 Instruction 10 raised the issue of whether a privilege existed and assigned simultaneous burdens of proof on the issue, while instruction 18 treated the existence of a privilege as settled and assigned plaintiff the burden of proving its abuse. Instruction 10 is not a correct statement of the law and could well have served to nullify instruction 18 in the jurors' minds. I would hold that instruction 10, the erroneous burden of proof instruction, imparted prejudicial error into the case requiring a new trial.
Accordingly, I dissent.
Callow and Durham, JJ., concur with Andersen, J.

W. Prosser, Torts § 115, at 796 (4th ed. 1971).

W. Prosser, at 796; Restatement (Second) of Torts § 619, comment a, at 316 (1977).

W. Prosser, at 796; Restatement (Second) of Torts, at 316.

Restatement (Second) of Torts, at 316.

W. Prosser, at 796.

Instruction 18.

Instruction 10.

Hall v. Corporation of Catholic Archbishop, 80 Wn.2d 797, 804, 498 P.2d 844 (1972); Matteson v. Thiel, 162 Wash. 193, 197, 298 P. 333 (1931).