Court Opinion

ID: 9687444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:28:22.841594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:27.438911
License: Public Domain

Souris, J.
(concurring in reversal and remand for trial). I cannot subscribe Mr. Justice Brennan’s opinion for affirmance but, instead, for reasons to be stated, I vote for reversal and remand for trial.
Summary disposition of plaintiff’s defamation claim because the televised film “is not defamatory as a matter of law”, as the circuit judge concluded *504on reconsideration of the motion for summary judgment,  was not legally justified. Justice Brennan accurately states, at p 522 of his opinion, infra, the plaintiff’s allegations regarding his claim that the film was defamatory. Having viewed the film, I am not prepared to join in any judgment which, as a matter of law, holds that the film did not tend “so to harm the reputation of another as to lower him in the estimation of the community or to deter third persons from associating or dealing with him.” The quoted language is from 3 Restatement, Torts, § 559, adopted by this Court, as the commonly accepted meaning of the word “defamation”, in Nuyen v. Slater (1964), 372 Mich 654, 662. Such judgment should be left for factual determination by a jury.
Plaintiff’s amended complaint, as I read it and as it was read by the parties themselves in the trial court, by the circuit judge, and by the Court of Appeals, purports to allege a cause of action only for defamation. Its 15 numbered paragraphs, comprising a single count, set forth allegations of fact appropriate for, and typical of, a defamation cause. Only in two paragraphs is there any suggestion of a claim by plaintiff that defendant’s action invaded his privacy. In one, the suggestion appears in his factual recital that a letter was sent by his attorneys to defendant requesting that it cease and desist from rebroadcasting the television film because it “was false and defamatory and an invasion of his right of privacy.” In the other, plaintiff simply alleged that the conduct of the defendant not only defamed him, but also subjected him to “inquisitive notice of the public.” Considering the contents and form of the amended complaint, and the way in which the parties themselves and the judges who heretofore have passed upon it have construed it, I do *505not believe that at this late date we should treat it as if it were a two-count complaint alleging causes of action for defamation and also for invasion of privacy.
I east my vote to reverse the circuit judge’s summary judgment and to remand for trial of the defamation cause alleged in plaintiff’s amended complaint, not for trial of an invasion of privacy cause. Plaintiff should be allowed to tax his costs.