Court Opinion

ID: 9736355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:53:31.816118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:06.144371
License: Public Domain

*338Barnes, J.,
dissenting:
I dissent because, in my opinion, there was, at least, sufficient evidence in the case to have the jury consider (1) whether the plaintiff and appellant, Dr. Harnish, was a “public figure,” and (2) whether, if the jury found that he was a “public figure,” the defendant and appellee, Philip Ebersole, was guilty of actual malice in reporting the false material, later published, in that he (a) had “actual knowledge of its falsity” or (b) was guilty of “reckless disregard of its truth or falsity.”
1. Public Figure.
With respect, I cannot agree with the majority that the “public official” concept enunciated by the Supreme Court of the United States in New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 84 S. Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964) and the later “public figure” concept which arose from the companion cases of Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, and Associated Press v. Walker, 388 U. S. 130, 87 S. Ct. 1975, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967) have been “broadened” to include any person involved in “a matter of public, or general concern,” by the case of Rosenbloom v. Metro-media, 403 U. S. 29, 91 S. Ct. 1811, 29 L.Ed.2d 296, decided June 7, 1971.
In the first place, Rosenbloom does not hold anything. There is no majority opinion. There is a plurality opinion rendered by Mr. Justice Brennan and joined by Chief Justice Burger and Justice Blackmun. If one considers the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Black — who concurred in the judgment on the basis of his notion that there should be no recovery in libel at all by a person defamed by the press — to be an oblique ratification of the new Brennan view, even here there would be the concurrence of only four justices and not the necessary five for a holding by the Supreme Court. The Brennan view that the publication of material of “public or general concern” should be sufficient to trigger the federal criteria has not become a new federal rule broadening New York Times and Curtis Publishing Co.
*339Mr. Justice White, while concurring in the judgment to make up the five justices to support the affirmance (otherwise there would have been an affirmance by an evenly divided Supreme Court), makes it quite clear that he does not concur in the reasoning and basis of the Brennan opinion. He stated in conclusion:
“I would accordingly hold that in defamation actions, absent actual malice as defined in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the First Amendment gives the press and the broadcast media a privilege to report and comment upon the official actions of public servants in full detail, with no requirement that the reputation or the privacy of an individual involved in or affected by the official action be spared from public view. Since respondent Metromedia did nothing more in the instant case, I join with the Court in holding its broadcasts privileged. I would not, however, adjudicate cases not now before the Court.”
(403 U. S. at 62, 91 S. Ct. at 1829, 29 L.Ed.2d at 322.)
In the dissenting opinions of Mr. Justice Harlan and of Mr. Justice Marshall, concurred in by Mr. Justice Stewart, it is apparent that they consider that “the public official — public figure” requirement to have the federal libel criteria supersede the state libel law, is still viable, and should continue. In short, a majority of the Supreme Court of the United States has not yet indicated that the Supreme Court has so greatly broadened New York Times and Curtis Publishing Co. and neither should we. This is particularly true in a legal situation in which, in the opinion of many, the extension of federal judicial construction of the provisions of the First Amendment through the “due process” provision of the Fourteenth Amendment is unwarranted and unsound. I have expressed myself in this regard in several concurring and dissenting opinions and do not find it necessary to repeat what I observed in those opinions. See State v. *340Lundquist, 262 Md. 534, 558, 568, 278 A. 2d 263, 276, 281 (1971) ; State v. Fowler, 259 Md. 95, 108, 142, 267 A. 2d 228, 236, 253 (1970) ; Brukiewa v. Police Commissioner of Baltimore City, 257 Md. 36, 59, 78, 263 A. 2d 210, 222, 231 (1970) ; Miller v. State, 251 Md. 362, 383, 247 A. 2d 530, 541 (1968) ; State v. Giles, 245 Md. 342, 660, 227 A. 2d 745, 229 A. 2d 97 (1967) ; Truitt v. Board of Public Works, 243 Md. 375, 411, 221 A. 2d 370, 392 (1966) ; Montgomery County Council v. Garrott, 243 Md. 634, 650, 656, 222 A. 2d 164, 172, 176 (1966) ; State v. Barger, 242 Md. 616, 628, 639, 220 A. 2d 304, 311, 317 (1966) ; and Hughes v. Maryland Committee for Fair Representation, 241 Md. 471, 491, 217 A. 2d 273, 285 (1966). The point is that, although we are bound by the supremacy clause in the Federal Constitution and by Art. 2 of the Declaration of Rights in the Maryland Constitution to give- effect to holdings of the Supreme Court in construing and applying the Federal Constitution as those provisions are thought to apply to the States, nothing short of a holding releases us from our obligation to support and apply the Maryland Constitution, laws and decisions in a particular case. Secondly, Rosenbloom was decided substantially after the verdict and judgment in the present case were entered. In view of some of the new and curious holdings of the Supreme Court in prior cases in regard to whether or not a decision overruling prior Supreme Court holdings is retroactive in effect, it is by no means clear that Rosenbloom would have such retroactive effect in the instant case, even assuming, arguendo, that Rosenbloom did “broaden” New York Times and Curtis Publishing Co.
I have concluded, therefore, that the holdings of the Supreme Court in New York Times and Curtis Publishing Co. in regard to “public officials” and “public figures” are still binding and that Rosenbloom does not require that those holdings now be disregarded.
Obviously, Dr. Harnish was not a “public official” and, as such, within the purview of New York Times. This is conceded.
*341Was there sufficient evidence in the case which would support a jury finding that Dr. Harnish was not a “public figure” ? In my opinion, such a finding would be supported by the evidence. Indeed, it is, as I see it, a close question as to whether or not the trial court should not have found as a matter of law that there was insufficient evidence to support a contrary finding, requiring a mandatory instruction to the jury that he was not a “public figure.” Apparently, Judge Clapp was originally of this opinion. After hearing argument of counsel for the defendants, Herald-Mail Co. and Ebersole, on the “public figure” point, he stated:
“Court: Well, my reaction though to your argument is that this question of a public figure is a complete afterthought that the Herald-Mail wasn’t thinking of Dr. Harnish as a public figure in any sense when it wrote this article, otherwise it would have said former member of the housing authority, former candidate for the House of Delegates. I say I am unconvinced that the public figure matter applies here.”
Later, however, Judge Clapp apparently came to the opposite conclusion, stating to the jury when he directed the verdict in favor of the defendants:
“My first decision as a matter of law was required to be whether this plaintiff, Dr. Harnish, was a public figure, not a public official. It is already agreed that he had left the housing authority — but whether he was a public figure in Hagerstown on October 3, 1967 when this alleged libel was taken. Upon the examination of the uncontradicted evidence I came to the conclusion that he was. He had been a member of the housing authority in Hagerstown for a period of 9 years, leaving that office just a year before this alleged libel. He was in a field of public housing that was the subject matter of this *342article and a series of articles that had been conducted by the newspaper-defendant. So that there were items of public interest and certainly, it seemed to me, at least as a matter of law, that a man who had been in that field for a period of 9 years was a public figure in the sense that the people of Hagerstown would be interested in what he would or would not do in the field of housing. It also happened that he was a landlord and he had given this notice there in that place where the housing was substandard.
“So, I say, it seemed on the basis of the public generally being interested in the improvement of substandard housing and his activity in this field, he was a public figure in that sense.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Judge Clapp’s first impression was the correct one, as first impressions are apt to be. His final conclusion was in error, in my opinion, and represents a “blend,” as it were, of Curtis Publishing Co. and the plurality opinion in Rosenbloom.
The theory underlying the “public official” doctrine was that public officials had access to the press by virtue of their office to refute the false material, and the balancing of the policy favoring a robust criticism of public officials, as against the policy of the protection of persons from loss of reputation from false publication, required that the press not be subject to recoveries for libel except in cases of knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard of truth or falsity. The “public figure” concept rests upon the same basic assumption, the Supreme Court finding it difficult to distinguish between the access of a “public figure” to the press, from the access of a “public official” to the press. Hence, the “public official” concept was extended to the “public figure” as well. Curtis Publishing Co., supra, 388 U. S. 130, 87 S. Ct. 1975, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967).
The trial court rested its conclusion that Dr. Harnish *343was a “public figure” upon his membership on the five-man Hagerstown Housing Authority for nine years, his membership ending, however, a year prior to the false publications. Judge Clapp also mentioned the abortive attempts of Dr. Harnish to be nominated as a candidate of the Democratic Party for the House of Delegates in the primaries in 1958, 1962 and 1966. These abortive attempts were obviously those of an amateur, and he was handily defeated. It is not contended that Dr. Harnish ever had, or had at the time of the false publications, any political power or influence.
Nor was his membership on the Hagerstown Housing Authority such as to make him a “public figure” within the meaning of Curtis Publishing Co. It was uncontradicted that such membership was meaningless and that the decisions of the Authority were controlled by the federal housing officials. This membership — although true — was not so much as mentioned in any of the false publications. Apparently the defendants did not think such membership was a matter of public importance or even of public interest and could not make Dr. Harnish a “public figure.” There was no showing that he had any “access to the press” and the reasonable inferences are that he did not.
Even if we assume for the purposes of the argument, that there was some evidence from which a jury might conclude that Dr. Harnish was a “public figure,” surely this issue should have been left to the jury under proper instructions for its determination.
I am becoming increasingly alarmed by statements in opinions of some of the justices of the Supreme Court in libel and pornography cases in regard to a supposed “independent constitutional judgment” on the facts. If this means that an appellate court is at liberty to substitute its notions of what the jury should have found, but did not find, on conflicting evidence or on reasonable inferences from evidence, then such position, in my opinion, should be held to be unconstitutional in the federal courts as clearly contrary to the express provisions *344of the Seventh Amendment of the Federal Constitution which provides:
“In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”
It should also be held to be unconstitutional in Maryland as it conflicts with the provisions of Art. 5 of the Declaration of Rights of the Maryland Constitution which, in relevant part, provides:
“That the Inhabitants of Maryland are entitled to the Common Law of England and to the trial by Jury, according to the course of that Law, * *’ *”
In the plurality opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan in Rosenbloom appears the following extraordinary statement:
“Moreover, we ordinarily decide civil litigation by the preponderance of the evidence. Indeed, the judge instructed the jury to decide the present case on that standard. In the normal civil suit where this standard is employed, ‘we view it as no more serious in general for there to be an erroneous verdict in the defendant’s favor than for there to be an erroneous verdict in the plaintiff’s favor.’ In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 371, 90 S. Ct. 1068, 1076, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970) (concurring opinion of Harlan, J.). In libel cases, however, we view an erroneous verdict for the plaintiff as most serious. Not only does it mulct the defendant for an innocent misstatement — the three-quarter-million-dollar jury verdict in this case could rest on such an error —but the possibility of such error, even beyond *345the vagueness of the negligence standard itself, would create a strong impetus toward self-censorship, which the First Amendment cannot tolerate. These dangers for freedom of speech and press led us to reject the reasonable-man standard of liability as ‘simply inconsistent’ with our national commitment under the First Amendment when sought to be applied to the conduct of a political campaign. Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy, 401 U. S. 265, 276, 91 S. Ct. 621, 625, 28 L.Ed.2d 35 (1971). The same considerations lead us to reject that standard here.” (403 U. S. at 50-51, 91 S. Ct. at 1823, 29 L.Ed.2d at 315-16.)
In my opinion, it begs the question for an appellate court to speak of “an erroneous verdict for the plaintiff” if such a verdict is based upon the evidence and the reasonable inferences from that evidence under proper instructions by the trial court. The evaluation of evidence and inferences is for the determination by the jury, not for the determination of a court — nisi prius or appellate. Merely because the jury made an evaluation that the appellate court — if it had sat as the jury— would not have made does not make the jury’s verdict “erroneous.”
It is not lacking in irony that the apparent effort of pluralities and even majorities of the Supreme Court to maximize — unduly in my opinion — the operation and effect of provisions of the First Amendment may well result in destroying, or gravely impairing, the equally, if not more important, constitutional right of trial by jury by the course of the common law and flies squarely in the teeth of an express prohibition in the Seventh Amendment. This Court should, in my opinion, be slow in embracing such a strange and dangerous doctrine.

2.

If it be assumed, arguendo, that Dr. Harnish was a “public figure” as a matter of law and that the federal *346criteria apply, even then there was, in my opinion, quite sufficient evidence of actual malice to require this issue to be submitted to the jury, however searching “an independent constitutional judgment” on the facts might be. As I view the evidence, there was indeed sufficient— if not conclusive — evidence of (a) “actual knowledge of falsity” by the reporter Ebersole or (b) that he was guilty of “reckless disregard of truth or falsity.”
I turn to a consideration of the evidence in regard to these matters.
(a) Actual knowledge of falsity.
The present case is extraordinary in containing admissions from the reporter that he knew — had actual knowledge — of the falsity of important portions of the defamatory material.
One of the most damaging parts of the defamatory material was that Dr. Harnish was oppressing a veteran by the landlord’s failure to make necessary repairs to the rented property. In cross-examination, Ebersole admitted that when he prepared the articles he “knew” that the wounded veteran was not at that time “residing at [634] North Locust Street.” The cross-examination then continued :
Q. Nevertheless, you printed the notice to quit and the notice to quit said, ‘Mr. James Reeder, 634 N. Locust St., Hagerstown. Dear Mr. Reeder: (And the letter was dated September 28 and-the letter states:) This is a thirty days notice required by law requesting that you vacate the premises at 634 N. Locust St., Hagerstown, by October 1, 1967. Very truly yours, Richard G. Harnish, D. C.' And then you went on to state: ‘It may be noted that the letter is addressed to James Reeder, [the wounded veteran] . . . .’ So it is definitely not true that the letter was addressed to the wounded veteran because the wounded veteran was down there at *347the United States Naval Hospital, right? A. That is correct, yes. Because his name was Dennis.
“Q. And you had written the story a few days previously in which a picture of Dennis Reeder was exhibited, right? A. Right.”
Again, the headline in The Morning Herald of September 28, 1967,1 “New Jolt For A Wounded Marine” with a picture of Dennis E. Reeder in uniform was intended to convey the impression that Dennis was injured by the building code violations. Ebersole admitted that he knew that Dennis did not live in the property and in the body of the article it appears that Dennis was “a patient at the U. S. Naval Hospital at Bethesda, recovering from wounds in both legs suffered at DaNang.”
In the October 3, 1967, publication in The Daily Mail, Ebersole’s article carried a headline, “Wounded Marine’s Family Evicted From Home After Code Complaints.”
The cross-examination of Ebersole indicated:
“Q. It is [sic: Is it] not generally recognized in the newspaper industry that more attention is paid to the heading of an article than to the body of the article? The heading is where the most impact is. A. The headline is important, certainly.
“Q. Now, you knew that when you wrote this article that he had not actually evicted anybody. Yet you used the word ‘evicted.’ ‘Wounded Marine’s Family Evicted From Home.’ A. Well, he had sent an eviction notice. That is all he has to do.
“Q. And a notice to quit. He hadn’t evicted anybody. Do you not know that the Reeders continued to live on the property until the city purchased it? A. Yes.”
*348In playing up the “veteran” angle, the jury could well have found that this was employed to inflict the maximum injury upon Dr. Harnish in view of the testimony of Charles E. Price, the Sheriff of Washington County, that Hagerstown is “a community that has a high regard for its veterans.” Mr. Nye, the housing inspector, communicated with the Hagerstown veterans organizations about the matter and stated that he advised Ebersole during the times he was talking with him that Nye “would contact veterans’ organizations.”
In The Morning Herald of September 29, 1967,2 Ebersole published a picture he had taken of the rear of one of the row houses in the 600 block of North Locust Street with the heading “they call it Potlikker Flats” and wrote an accompanying article in which he falsely stated that the houses in the 600 block rent “for $40 and $45 a week.” (Emphasis supplied.) It is conceded that such an amount of rent for any of these properties would be grossly excessive and unheard of in Hagerstown. Inasmuch as the Harnish property is singled out, together with the photograph, it is made to appear that Dr. Harnish was charging this outrageous rental and was indeed “grinding the faces of the poor.”
Ebersole, however, had actual knowledge that the tenants in Dr. Harnish’s property only paid $40 a month— not a week — in that on the previous day he had published an article in The Morning Herald in which he stated that the rent was “40 a month.” On cross-examination, Ebersole admitted that the statement in regard to $40 or $45 a week rent was incorrect. These admissions by the reporter could have been found by the jury to constitute actual knowledge of falsity and this is an important distinction of the instant case from the Court’s decision in A. S. Abell Co. v. Barnes, 258 Md. 56, 265 A. 2d 207 (1970) in which the reporter never admitted that he had knowledge of the false accusation and stoutly *349maintained that its publication was the result of an inadvertent mistake.
It is a rare case, indeed, in which the evidence could support a jury finding that the reporter admitted that he knew that the defamatory material was false, but nevertheless proceeded to publish such false material. This, however, is such a case and most certainly this case should have gone to the jury on this issue, even if one assumes that the trial court was not required to direct a verdict for Dr. Harnish on the question of liability.
(b) Reckless disregard of truth or falsity.
Not only did Ebersole have actual knowledge of falsity, as above set forth, but in many instances, the jury might well have found that he manifested a reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of defamatory and damaging material.
As already observed, Ebersole knew that the name of the veteran in the hospital at Bethesda was Dennis Reeder and not James Reeder. He had previously conferred with Elmer Reeder, the father and the tenant in the Harnish property. He had been in prior communication by telephone with Dr. Harnish. He received a xerox copy of the thirty-day notice to quit the premises from Nye. Under these circumstances, the jury could have concluded that the reporter entertained serious doubts of its truth or falsity and there was a reckless disregard of truth or falsity to equate the giving of the thirty-day notice to “the wounded Marine” without so much as a communication of any kind with Dr. Harnish or with Elmer Reeder prior to publication to ascertain whether or not this damaging statement were true or false. Even a limited knowledge would suggest that'it was incredible that a thirty-day notice to quit a property would be given to an absent son of a tenant, rather than to the tenant himself, and at an address where it was known that the son was not present. The news was not “hot news” and *350Ebersole had ample time to check the truth or falsity with Dr. Harnish or Elmer Reeder, the tenant.
Then, too, the thirty-day notice showed on its face that the Reeder family was not “evicted” as the glaring headline indicated. Indeed, as above indicated, the Reeder family remained in the Harnish property until the City of Hagerstown was ready to begin its demolition in order to widen Locust Street some months later, which Ebersole admitted he knew.
It should be remembered also that Ebersole admitted in his testimony that he had learned at a Rotary Club meeting in February, 1967, at which the Mayor of Hagerstown had spoken, that the City of Hagerstown intended to widen Locust Street in the 600 block and tear down those properties. Ebersole then knew that whatever violations of the building code existed in the 600 block Locust Street houses, the situation was likely to be a temporary one in the light, of the contemplated demolition of the houses by the City. This presented a most unlikely area for the Ebersole-Nye “crusade” against Dr. Harnish, even assuming that Ebersole had an interest in proper housing generally in Hagerstown. The extraordinary activities of Nye, his visits to the veterans organizations in regard to the Harnish property, the great playing up of a really nonexistent veteran’s problem, the singling out of the Harnish property — admittedly in better condition than many of the other houses in the 600 block of Locust Street — could lead a jury to conclude that Ebersole had indeed engaged in an “extreme departure from the standards of investigation and reporting ordinarily adhered to by responsible publishers.” Curtis Publishing Co., supra, 388 U. S. at 158, 87 S. Ct. at 1991, 18 L.Ed.2d at 1111.
The defendants below called Joseph M. Harp, Associate Editor of The Morning Herald and The Daily Mail as their witness. In reply to a question by the court, Mr. Harp stated that: “I haven’t given Mr. Philip Ebersole any specific instructions. He is a veteran reporter and certainly knows he is to report only facts.” On cross-*351examination, Mr. Harp testified that, although he was a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and of the Annual Yearbook Committee, he was “not familiar with the Code of Ethics of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.” Mr. Harp admitted on cross-examination that he had seen a book edited and published in pamphlet form by the American Newspaper Publishers Foundation, entitled A. Hanson, Libel and Related Torts (1969). At Section 299, page 245, the following appears:
“D. CONCLUSION. The persistent use of formalized procedures and policies designed to promote accuracy is the best evidence the media can produce to show that publication was not in reckless disregard of the truth. Such procedures counteract any evidence of possible suspicions that the material was inaccurate. In the New York Times case for instance, it was shown that the persons handling the faulty advertisement saw nothing on its face which made it unacceptable under the ‘Advertising Acceptability Standards’ which the Times set forth in booklet form.
“The absence of such systematic procedures renders the media vulnerable to a jury determination that a ‘high degree of awareness of probable falsity’ existed, and in addition intensifies the risks of the even stricter liability which attaches to misstatements about persons who are not public men.”
The jury could have concluded that, notwithstanding this recommendation for the establishment of formalized, systematic procedures and policies by the newspaper to promote accuracy, Ebersole had no specific instructions and was, in effect, “left on his own” so far as the preparation of news articles was concerned with a consequent “extreme departure from the standard of investigation and reporting ordinarily adhered to by responsible publishers.”
*352There are rulings on evidence and other rulings by the trial court which appear to me to have been in error, but it would unduly prolong this dissenting opinion to consider them specifically.
I would reverse and remand for a new trial. I am authorized to state that Judge Finan concurs in the views herein expressed.

. This article, although not part of the declaration, was admitted into evidence by the trial court for consideration in connection with malice on the part of the reporter.

._ Also admitted into evidence by the trial court on the issue of malice of the reporter.