Court Opinion

ID: 9632564
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:19:14.165812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:18.633036
License: Public Domain

DUBOFSKY, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. Because I believe that the defendant’s statement was nonde-famatory and could not have been published with reckless disregard of its truth, I would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
I.
My conclusion that the defendant did not intend a defamatory meaning and that the statement in fact did not carry one requires a brief review of facts not set out in the majority opinion. Yvonne Burns first filed a divorce action in January, 1972. She and Jack Burns reconciled prior to the accident and Mr. Burns moved back with the family. The accident which disabled Mr. Burns did not occur until several months later. Mrs. Burns moved out of the house in November, 1973, after Mr. Burns had regained some of his sight, hearing, and ability to live independently. Mrs. Burns obtained an uncon*1363tested divorce in April, 1974. The Burns’ 12 year old daughter and 15 year old son chose to live with their mother. The couple’s three other sons, aged 17,16, and 13, initially chose to stay with their father. Over the course of the next two years, all of the children gave up living with their father.1 When the camera crew visited Mr. Burns in the family home in 1976 to film the interview which is the subject of this action, neither Mrs. Burns nor the children were living there.
The story about Jack Burns was one in a series examining the motivations for and ramifications of holding an ultrahazardous job. The reporter who interviewed Burns testified to Bums’ special concern with the need for rehabilitation benefits and family psychiatric coverage in cases such as his. Burns’ insights thus matched what the reporter testified was an intended goal of the story — to alert employers and workers alike to the necessity of such benefits for those employed in dangerous occupations.
Burns described his post-accident problems to the reporter. At trial, Burns testified that he was not critical of his family for acting as they did. Rather, he regretted never having discussed the possibility of an accident with his family and testified at trial that he had confided to the reporter that “I know what it feels like to be deserted.”
It was that final exchange which the reporter recounted in her brief introduction to the footage of the accident.2 The reporter testified that she understood and later rephrased these comments in the same noncritical manner which Burns had used in relating them to her.3 The point of the story was not the motivation for the Burns family break-up; rather, it was the aftermath of a tragic accident.
In determining whether a publication is defamatory, the words must be given that meaning which is ordinarily attached to them by persons familiar with the language. It is not enough that the particular recipient of the communication attaches a defamatory meaning to it. If the defamatory meaning is not intended, it must be a reasonable construction of the language. Restatement 2d Torts, § 563 (1976).
Webster’s Third International Dictionary (1961) gives four preferred meanings of the verb “desert” before listing one with distinctly derogatory connotations.4 I simply do not find the majority’s citation of an 1889 case from Michigan convincing proof that “desertion” is today a term of universally derogatory connotation. Slip op. at 10.' According the verb its most common meaning, it describes precisely the circumstances of Jack Burns’ personal life in 1976: his wife and five children had left him.5
Desertion has not been a ground for divorce in Colorado since 1971, when Colorado *1364enacted the Uniform Dissolution of Marriage Act. Colo.Sess.Laws 1971, p. 520, et seq., section 14-10-101 et seq., C.R.S.1973. The Act, which has been adopted by eight states,6 revised the divorce statute to eliminate all grounds other than irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, section 14-10-102, and provided that marital misconduct should play no part in the disposition of a couple’s property. 14-10-113. At least thirty additional states have abrogated desertion as a ground for divorce by their enactment of no-fault statutes.7 In my view, these provisions are no more than a realistic acknowledgement of a divorce rate so high that it is statistically almost as likely that a marriage will end in divorce as that it will not.8 As divorce has become widespread and affected much of our population, the stigma associated with leaving one’s spouse has nearly vanished. Viewed against that backdrop, I am persuaded that the term “deserted” must be given its non-defamatory meaning.
The use of “deserted” to describe the fact that Burns’ family had left him is less pejorative than the use of the term “blackmail” to describe the negotiating tactics of the plaintiff in Greenbelt Publishing Assn. v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6, 90 S.Ct. 1537, 26 L.Ed.2d 6 (1970). In Greenbelt, the U.S. Supreme Court found that “blackmail” was no more than rhetorical hyperbole loosely descriptive of a bargaining position that some considered unreasonable. National Association of Letter Carriers v. Austin, 418 U.S. 264, 94 S.Ct. 2770, 41 L.Ed.2d 745 (1974) reinforced the Greenbelt holding. Austin held that the word “traitor” in the context of a labor picketing dispute was again mere rhetorical hyperbole. Taken together, Greenbelt, Austin, and Austin ⅛ companion case, Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974) have been interpreted as creating an unconditional privilege for rhetorical hyperbole in a context where the actual malice standard is appropriate. Note, Fact and Opinion after Gertz, 34 Rutgers L.Rev. 97 (1981). By its use of “deserted” instead of “left” or “moved out” or “stopped living with”, the defendant indulged in a sort of rhetorical hyperbole. Nevertheless, the assertion that “his wife and five children have deserted him” was literally and factually true.
That “left” or “stopped living with” is the more logical of the meanings which can be attributed to the word “deserted” in this context is pointed up by the majority’s failure to find any particular defamation of four of the five plaintiffs — the Burns’ children. The majority opinion focuses almost entirely on the allegedly defamatory connotation of “deserted” when applied to the actions of Mrs. Burns. This analysis overlooks the point that the word “deserted” was used to describe the actions of the children in leaving as well. If “deserted” has any special defamatory relevance when applied to the relationship of children to a parent, the majority does not mention one.
Further, I find the majority’s fact/opinion analysis inapposite. The statement at issue here was an allegation of fact: that Mrs. Burns and the family had deserted (left) Burns since (after) the accident. The defendant did not purport to express an opinion as to why Mrs. Burns — or the children- — had deserted Mr. Burns. Had the defendant said that the family deserted Mr. Burns because of the accident, we would enter the realm of speculation and opinion. “It is comment to say that a certain act which a man has done is disgraceful or dishonourable; it is an allegation of fact to say that he did the act so criticised.” C. Gatley on Libel and Slander ¶ 701 (7th ed. R. McEwen & P. Lewis 1974).
*1365Finally, even if the majority could identify the opinion which it finds the defendant to have held, it errs in its application of the standard to test that opinion for defamation. The standard, set out in Restatement 2d Torts § 566 (1976), is:
A defamatory communication may consist of a statement in the form of an opinion, but a statement of this nature is actionable only if it implies the allegation of undisclosed defamatory facts as the basis for the opinion. (Emphasis added.)
If the comment that “his wife and five children have deserted him since the accident” implies the existence of facts which justify that statement, it is the truth of these facts that must be determined. Restatement 2d Torts § 581A (1976) comment e. It is undisputed that Yvonne Burns and the couple’s children “deserted” Jack Burns in the ordinary dictionary meaning of that word. As the underlying facts are true, the statement is non-defamatory. Restatement 2d Torts § 566 (1976).
II.
Under the standard of Diversified Management, Inc. v. Denver Post, 653 P.2d 1103 (Colo.1982) the plaintiffs in this case bore the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant made the disputed statement with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for its falsity.9 As the majority correctly states, clear and convincing proof of reckless disregard is shown by evidence that a defendant entertained serious doubts as to the truth of the statement. Slip op. at 1361. I do not believe that the plaintiffs did — or could— meet this burden.
In Herbert v. Lando, 441 U.S. 153, 99 S.Ct. 1635, 60 L.Ed.2d 115 (1979) the U.S. Supreme Court held that plaintiffs in defamation actions can depose media defendants to discover an author’s state of mind at the time of publication. Lando leaves no doubt that the defendant’s intent is a critical area of inquiry: “New York Times and its progeny made it essential to proving liability that the plaintiff focus on the conduct and state of mind of the defendant.” 441 U.S. at 160, 99 S.Ct. at 1640. The practical effect of this pronouncement is to make inquiry into the subjective state of mind of a defendant an essential element of a media defamation case.
The plaintiffs in this case took the deposition of the reporter who, after researching the story and interviewing Mr. Burns, stated that his family had deserted him. All of this evidence — and it is the only evidence on this point — attests to the reporter’s good faith belief that her use of the word “desert” was an accurate, non-derogatory characterization of the fact that Mrs. Burns and the couple’s children had chosen to leave and live elsewhere. See footnote 3, supra. The reporter’s deposition testimony on her own interpretation of the meaning of “to desert” squares with the preferred dictionary definition of that word. See footnotes 3 and 4, supra. Thus, the attention to the editorial process which is required of plaintiffs by Lando failed to uncover any proof that the defendant believed the statement was either false or derogatory, much less clear and convincing evidence that the defendant entertained serious doubts about the truth of the statement.
By contrasting the facts of this case with those in Kuhn v. Tribune-Republican Publishing Co., 637 P.2d 315 (Colo.1981), the defendant’s no'n-culpable state of mind here is underscored. Kuhn found proof of reckless disregard where a reporter had conducted a grossly negligent investigation, fabricating facts and failing to contact obvious sources of information. The statement at issue here was no fabrication. The reporter interviewed several sources and knew that Mrs. Burns and the children had left Mr. Burns. That fact was corroborated by the reporter’s visit to Mr. Burns’ home. The reporter chose her words to accurately portray both Burns’ living situation and his admonition that others evaluate the ramifications of ultrahazardous jobs. These facts make this a vastly different case than *1366Kuhn, in which the reporter testified that he wrote the story with false implications so as to “humanize” it and did not know or care about the truth of two key factual allegations. 637 P.2d at 318.
Because I find the record devoid of proof that the defendant acted with reckless disregard of the truth in stating that the plaintiffs deserted Mr. Burns, I would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals that the trial court erred in denying the defendant’s motion for a directed verdict.
I am authorized to say that Justice RO-VIRA joins me in this dissent.

. The record does not indicate what the legal custody arrangements were. All family members spoke in terms of making and changing living arrangements as they chose to.

. The Burns story lasted 3 minutes and 17 seconds; the statement at issue here, delivered by the reporter standing in front of Burns’ house, consumed several seconds.

. PLAINTIFFS’ ATTORNEY: What does the word “deserted” mean to you?
REPORTER: Left alone.

PLAINTIFFS’ ATTORNEY: So in your mind, “desert” has no bad connotation and therefore that’s why you didn’t hesitate to use it in this ... story?
REPORTER: In the story, no. Didn’t have any bad connotations whatsoever. It was a descriptive word.

PLAINTIFFS’ ATTORNEY: That wasn’t your intent, to be critical in this article?
REPORTER: No, absolutely not.

. “Desert” is defined first as “to withdraw from or leave permanently or less often temporarily”; second as “to turn away from, especially by withdrawing support or disrupting bonds of attachment or duty”; third as “to leave behind or givé up”; fourth as “to renounce marital relations by quitting the company of (one’s spouse)”; and fifth as “to break away from or break off association with (some matter involving legal or moral obligation...): betray”.

. The plaintiffs (Mrs. Burns and four of the children) admitted that they had left Mr. Burns by the time of the broadcast.

. Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana and Washington. 9A Uniform Laws Annotated (Master edition 1979) (1982 Supp.).

. Sepler, Measuring the Effects of No-Fault Divorce Laws Across Fifty States, 15 Family Law Quarterly 65, 90-93 (1981).

.Current projections by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics indicate that 48% of all present marriages will end in divorce. Even this projection may be conservative, however, because it is based on past years and the divorce rate continues to increase. Weitzman, Changing Families, Changing Laws, 5 Family Advocate 1 (1982).

. Because of my conclusion that the statement was literally and factually true, analysis of the defendant’s knowledge of falsity is not pertinent here.