Court Opinion

ID: 9718041
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:15:43.293935+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:27:12.806277
License: Public Domain

Justice BAKER
filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part which Justice ENOCH and Justice HANKINSON joined.
Justice O’NEILL did not participate.
APPENDIX
CHANNEL 13 NEWS BROADCAST
5:30 P.M. NEWS — December 1,1991
BOB BOUDREUX:
Good evening everyone, and thank you for joining us.
We begin tonight with word of what may be one of the biggest attempted insurance swindles in recent Houston history, the apparent conspiracy to fake the death of a 30-year old Houston man with criminal troubles and millions of dollars in life insurance.
Tonight, Wayne Dolcefino with his 13 exclusive undercover investigation into a mystery with potential explosive political twist.
*126Wayne.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
That’s right, Bob, because among the questions: What role did Houston mayoral candidate, Sylvester Turner, play in this tale of multi-million dollar fraud?
We have been investigating Turner’s role in this attempted insurance swindle since we first heard about it on the day before the Thanksgiving holiday.
Our focus, what did Sylvester Turner know and when did he know it?
In loving memory, the obituary read.
It was June of 1986, and 30-year old Sylvester Clyde Foster, a male model and beauty salon owner, had died in a freak accident.
Two companions claimed Foster had fallen off a sail boat and into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico six miles south of Galveston.
The Coast Guard searched but the body was never found.
This week, 13 Undercover learned Sylvester Foster was very much alive and in prison in Salamanca, Spain, under an alias, Christopher Lauren Fostier.
Fostier had been arrested after allegedly delivering two kilos of cocaine to a Spanish undercover agent.
Dwight Thomas was said to be Foster’s closest friend here in Houston.
We asked him on Thanksgiving morning about Foster’s miraculous return from the grave.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
Prison, Spain?
SPEAKER:
Uh-huh.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
Prison, Spain?
Prison, Spain?
SPEAKER:
Sylvester Clyde Foster.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
I know who you’re speaking of.
SPEAKER:
Yeah.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
I know nothing about prison in Spain. SPEAKER:
You don’t know that he’s alive and he’s in prison?
DWIGHT THOMAS:
No.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
We found Thomas at his home in Inwood Forest, a home he shares with mayoral candidate Sylvester Turner.
It’s the home Turner has been leasing inside the city limits since he announced plans to run for mayor.
The candidate claims the news about Foster was news to him, too.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
That guy died more than five or six years ago.
SPEAKER:
He’s not dead.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
As far as we all know.
I mean, he went overboard.
SPEAKER:
He’s in Spain.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
Not as far as I know.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
Both Dwight Thomas and Sylvester Turner were deeply involved in the Sylvester Foster case and the attempt to get life insurance companies to pay off 6.5 million dollars in the wake of the disappearance.
But did they know it was all a hoax, a scheme to swindle millions?
DWIGHT THOMAS:
No.
*127I wouldn’t set myself up for something crazy like that.
SPEAKER:
And Sylvester Turner didn’t know?
DWIGHT THOMAS:
No.
No.
We never would have — in fact, as a matter of fact, we wouldn’t have dealt with him at all if we had known that he was doing something out of the ordinary beyond the premise of the law.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
But Thomas and Turner did deal with Sylvester Foster, even after learning he was the target of criminal investigations in early 1986, and they pursued the estate money even after significant evidence of a possible scam in Foster’s death had already surfaced.
Dwight Thomas introduced Foster to his friend, attorney Sylvester Turner, in early 1986.
And in June of that year, Turner drew up a will for Foster; the timing interesting.
On June 18th, Sylvester Foster was indicted by a Houston federal grand jury for massive credit card fraud.
On June 19th, Foster rushed to sign the will in Turner’s office, leaving the next day for a sail boat trip in the Gulf, despite what friends called his fear of the water.
June 22nd, nine days after the indictment, three days after drawing up the will, Foster supposedly falls off the boat in another boat’s wake and drowns.
Curious?
Get this: In the weeks before the bizarre accident, Foster had applied for an emergency passport, bought several luxury cars with life insurance policies attached, and amassed millions in life insurance coverage.
Despite the signs of something fishy, Sylvester Turner began the legal effort to get the millions in insurance money released and get mutual friend, Dwight Thomas, appointed as administrator over the estate. Thomas at first denied he sought control of Foster’s estate until we told him about court documents we had viewed.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
The deal of it was, after he passed away, I found out that I was administrator of the estate.
So—
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
In fact, Thomas petitioned the court to become administrator.
We then asked him why the evidence didn’t make him suspicious.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
We looked into that.
I didn’t really know — actually, I really didn’t want to get too deeply involved in it because I didn’t know what was going on.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
There have been times we made out a will for individuals and they die for various reasons shortly thereafter.
And you look at it and you say, well — you know, try and put together the circumstances by which it come about.
I mean, it does happen.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
Turner also tried to block questioning of a female friend of Foster’s in this case, Christina Batura, a woman promised a share of the money in the will.
Batura died two years ago in an Hawaiian commuter plane crash, and Secret Service investigators now confirm they found letters and pictures that proved Batura knew Foster was alive, as she tried to collect on his death, and Turner helped her.
And investigators say they have statements that Turner’s close friend, Dwight Thomas, threatened at least one witness who had told authorities Foster was alive.
Thomas denies he was part of any scam.
*128DWIGHT THOMAS:
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
Undoubtedly no.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
Sylvester Turner pursued the estate case for a year, until a judge removed him from the case over Turner’s protest, citing conflicts of interest.
In November of 1987, Turner tried to collect more than $28,000 in legal fees from the still unsettled estate for his work.
The bill was rejected.
Thomas never gained control of the estate.
And only one of nine insurance companies ever paid off any money in Foster’s death.
And that money went to his father.
The mayoral candidate questions the timing of the revelations and claims he, too, was a victim, not part of any conspiracy to conceal Foster’s European get-away.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
Sylvester Turner is the one that’s been left with the bill.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
But if that’s true, then Sylvester Turner was duped by overwhelming evidence and at least two legal clients with close ties to one of his closest friends.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
You told me the man is a liar.
The man ought to come back here and be dealt with, if that’s the case.
If, in fact, he is, then he ought to be dealt with in the severest of terms.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
Do you feel used by him?
SYLVESTER TURNER:
Yeah.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
Sylvester Turner claims he fully cooperated with all of the investigations into Foster’s disappearance, but at least three investigators very close to this case tell us that’s simply not true.
And Bob, we’ll continue to pursue the full story both here at home and in Spain.
BOB BOUDREAUX:
Is Foster coming back?
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
The United States government is trying to extradite him back to Spain, and we have been trying through the U.S. embassy in Madrid to get contact with him.
BOB BOUDREAUX:
Thank you very much, Wayne. Keep following that one.
CHANNEL 13 — December 1,1991
10:00 p.m.
BOB BOUDREAUX:
Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us. It may very well be one of the biggest attempted insurance swindles in recent Houston history, the apparent conspiracy to fake the death of a Houston man with criminal troubles and millions of dollars in life insurance.
The question raised tonight is what role did mayoral candidate Sylvester Turner play in this insurance fraud? Tonight our Wayne Dolcefino has this exclusive 13 undercover investigation.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
In loving memory, the obituary read. It was June of 1986, and 30-year old Sylvester Clyde Foster, a male model and beauty salon owner, had died in a freak accident. Two companions claimed Foster had fallen off a sail boat and into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico six miles south of Galveston. The Coast Guard searched but the body was never found.
This week, 13 Undercover learned Sylvester Foster was very much alive and in prison in Salamanca, Spain, under an alias, *129Christopher Lauren Fostier. Fostier had been arrested after allegedly delivering two kilos of cocaine to a Spanish undercover agent.
Dwight Thomas was said to be Foster’s closest friend here in Houston. We asked him on Thanksgiving morning about Foster’s miraculous return from the grave.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
Prison, Spain?
SPEAKER:
Uh-huh.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
Prison, Spain? Prison, Spain?
SPEAKER:
Sylvester Clyde Foster.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
I know who you’re speaking of. I know nothing about prison and Spain.
SPEAKER:
You don’t know that he’s alive and he’s in prison?
DWIGHT THOMAS:
No.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
We found Thomas at his home in Inwood Forest, a home he shares with mayoral candidate Sylvester Turner. It’s the home Turner has been leasing inside the city limits since he announced plans to run for mayor. The candidate claims the news about Foster was news to him, too.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
That guy died more than five or six years ago.
SPEAKER:
He’s not dead.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
As far as we all know. I mean, that’s — he went overboard.
SPEAKER:
He’s in Spain.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
Not as far as I know.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
Both Dwight Thomas and Sylvester Turner were deeply involved in the Sylvester Foster case and the attempt to get life insurance companies to pay off 6.5 million dollars in the wake of the disappearance. But did they know it was all a hoax, a scheme to swindle millions?
DWIGHT THOMAS:
No. I wouldn’t set myself up for something crazy like that.
SPEAKER:
And Sylvester Turner didn’t know?
DWIGHT THOMAS:
No. No. We never would have — in fact, as a matter of fact, we wouldn’t have dealt with him at all if we had known that he was doing something out of the ordinary, beyond the premise of the law.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
But Thomas and Turner did deal with Sylvester Foster, even after learning he was the target of criminal investigations in early 1986, and they pursued the estate money even after significant evidence of a possible scam in Foster’s death had already surfaced.
Dwight Thomas introduced Foster to his friend, attorney Sylvester Turner, in early 1986. And in June of that year, Turner drew up a will for Foster; the timing interesting.
On June 18th, Sylvester Foster was indicted by a Houston federal grand jury for massive credit card fraud. On June 19th, Foster rushed to sign the will in Turner’s office, leaving the next day for a sail boat trip in the Gulf, despite what friends called his fear of the water.
June 22nd, nine days after the indictment, three days after drawing up the will, Foster supposedly falls off the boat in another boat’s wake and drowns. Curious? Get this: In the weeks before the bizarre accident, Foster had applied for an emergency passport, bought several luxury cars with *130life insurance policies attached, and amassed millions in life insurance coverage.
Despite the signs of something fishy, Sylvester Turner began the legal effort to get the millions in insurance money released and get mutual friend, Dwight Thomas, appointed as administrator over the estate. Thomas at first denied he sought control of Foster’s estate until we told him about court documents we had viewed.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
The deal of it was, after he passed away, I found out that I was administrator of the estate.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
In fact, Thomas petitioned the court to become administrator. We then asked him why the evidence didn’t make him suspicious.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
We looked into that. I didn’t really know-aetually, I really didn’t want to get too deeply involved in it because I didn’t know what was going on.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
There have been times we made out a will for individuals and they die for various reasons shortly thereafter. And you look at it and you say, well-you know, try and put together the circumstances by which it come about. I mean, it does happen.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
Turner also tried to block questioning of a female friend of Foster’s in this case, Christina Batura, a woman promised a share of the money in the will. Batura died two years ago in an Hawaiian commuter plane crash, and Secret Service investigators now confirm they found letters and pictures that proved Batura knew Foster was alive, as she tried to collect on his death, and Turner helped her.
And investigators say they have statements that Turner’s close friend, Dwight Thomas, threatened at least one witness who had told authorities Foster was alive. Thomas denies he was part of any scam.
DWIGHT THOMAS:
No. No. No. No. No. Undoubtedly no.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
Sylvester Turner pursued the estate case for a year, until a judge removed him from the case over Turner’s protest, citing conflicts of interest. In November of 1987, Turner tried to collect more than $28,000 in legal fees from the still unsettled estate for his work. The bill was rejected.
Thomas never gained control of the estate. And only one of nine insurance companies ever paid off any money in Foster’s death. And that money went to his father. The mayoral candidate questions the timing of the revelations and claims he, too, was a victim, not part of any conspiracy to conceal Foster’s European get-away.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
Sylvester Turner is the one that’s been left with the bill.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
But if that’s true, then Sylvester Turner was duped by overwhelming evidence and at least two legal clients with close ties to one of his closest friends.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
You told me the man is a liar. The man ought to come back here and be dealt with, if that’s the case. If, in fact, he is, then he ought to be dealt with in the severest of terms.
SPEAKER:
Do you feel used by him?
SYLVESTER TURNER:
Yeah.
WAYNE DOLCEFINO:
Sylvester Turner claims he fully cooperated with all of the investigations into Foster’s disappearance, but at least three investigators very close to this case tell us that’s simply not true. Wayne Dolcefino, 13 Eyewitness News.
BOB BOUDREAUX:
*131Now, tonight, Sylvester Turner called a news conference to attack that story as factually false, untrue, and misleading.
SYLVESTER TURNER:
When I have looked at the facts of this case and when you look at them, I think you will conclude that this is an all-time low in Houston politics. And I resent the fact that five days before the campaign, that these type of assertions are being made by anyone with reference to my character and my integrity.
BOB BOUDREAUX:
Turner claims the Foster story was hand-delivered to Channel 13 by opponent Bob Lanier’s campaign, and within the last hour, the Lanier campaign reacted.
CRAIG VAROGA:
I think it’s ridiculous that every time there’s a story in the newspaper or on TV that raises serious questions about Sylvester Turner’s public record, that he blames the Bob Lanier campaign.
BOB BOUDREAUX:
Reporter Wayne Dolcefino and Channel 13 stand by the story.
Justice HECHT, concurring in part and dissenting in part, and concurring in the judgment.
The Court holds in Part II of its opinion that a jury may find that a television news report critical of a public figure was false because it omitted facts that could have led a reasonable viewer to form a less adverse impression of the public figure. Such a lenient standard for measuring evidence of falsity — whether a reasonable person could have thought a news report any less damaging to a public figure if other facts had been included — is inconsistent with the rule that a statement is not defamatory if it is substantially true, and significantly threatens open and vigorous discourse about matters of public interest. As the Court’s analysis in this case demonstrates, almost any fact favorable to the subject of a news report, but omitted from its broadcast, could cause a reasonable person to think differently, and perhaps better, about the subject; thus, any such omission, under the Court’s standard, would support a finding that the broadcast was false. In my view, an omission or juxtaposition of facts from a broadcast about a public figure cannot support a finding that the broadcast was false absent clear and convincing evidence1 that but for the omission or juxtaposition a reasonable person would have had a better opinion of the public figure.
I do not disagree with the Court that a report may be false in import even if every statement made is itself true, and that such a report should be actionable. Omissions, half-truths, distortions, and innuendo can make a report as false as outright lies. True statements may be made in a context that does not create a truthful impression. For example, if KTRK had reported that Judge Hutchison was involved in a possible insurance scam without adding that his only involvement was in presiding over a case in which there was evidence of an insurance scam, the report, while true, would create the completely false impression that the judge’s involvement was improper. An ordinary listener cannot be expected to parse “involved” finely enough to conclude that the judge was merely doing his job. The media can well appreciate how words can be woven to mislead and injure without making any false statement, and the prospect of liability for such conduct poses no threat to legitimate discourse.
Here, the broadcast reported that Turner was “deeply involved in the Sylvester Foster case and the attempt to get life insurance companies to pay off 6.5 million *132dollars in the wake of the disappearance.” But the report did not stop there; its other details explained exactly how Turner was “involved” — that Turner was acting as a lawyer in drafting the will for Foster and in representing Thomas in the probate proceeding. The description of Turner’s activities is substantially true; any errors in describing the precise time period involved in preparing the will, the amount of the insurance coverage, and the capacity in which Turner’s client appeared in the probate proceeding, are immaterial. Mere speculation about what Turner knew, and when he knew it, is not actionable, and neither is any implied criticism about Turner’s choice of clients.
Legitimate discourse is significantly impaired if the test for determining whether a report has created a false impression by the omission or juxtaposition of facts is merely that a reasonable person could have formed a less negative impression of a public figure had the report been different. The omission of almost any fact favorable to the public figure passes this test, as the Court’s analysis proves. Twice the Court says that an accurate broadcast by KTRK and Dolcefino would have raised “serious”, “troubling” questions about Turner’s association with Foster and Thomas and would not have been actionable.2 But the Court concludes that the broadcast falsely suggested that Turner not only had questionable associations but that he was personally involved in a scam.
According to the Court, “the broadcast’s most misleading omission concerned Turner’s actions as lawyer for Foster’s estate.” 3 The following four omissions, the Court says, could have caused a reasonable viewer to think that Turner was more personally involved:
• by stating that Turner had moved to have Thomas appointed administrator of Foster’s estate, without explaining that Thomas had been named independent executor in Foster’s will and Turner’s actions were no different than any attorney hired to probate a will;
• by failing to state that Foster’s father was the primary beneficiary under Foster’s will, leaving the impression that Turner or Thomas might have benefitted personally from the probate of the will;
• by stating that Turner was removed as the attorney for the estate for a conflict of interest without explaining that the conflict was not unethical conduct but was simply that Turner would be a fact witness in the case and could not therefore serve as legal counsel also; and
• by stating that Turner’s application to be paid his legal fees was rejected without explaining why, even though the record itself contains no clear explanation.
Somewhat inconsistently, the Court concludes in Part III of its opinion that Dolcefino cannot be faulted for omitting these facts because as a non-lawyer, he may not have understood their significance in the probate proceeding. If Dolcefino, a veteran reporter who investigated the proceeding before broadcasting his report, did not understand the significance of the facts the Court now thinks should have been included, it is not immediately clear why an ordinary viewer would have had any better understanding. But inconsistency aside, the analysis shows how relaxed the Court’s standard for falsity is when facts are omitted from a report. Could a reasonable viewer have been less inclined to think that Turner stood to gain personally from his actions if the omitted facts had been included in Dolcefino’s report? Sure. Would a reasonable person have been less inclined to think Turner would benefit personally? Maybe, but the Court does not even ask this question. The determinative question should be: if a reasonable viewer was misled by the omission of information into thinking that Turner was trying to benefit personally from an insurance scam, is it clear that this reasonable viewer *133would think better of Turner if the additional information persuaded him that Turner was only unknowingly helping a friend perpetrate a seam? In the Court’s view, for the jury to have found that the report was false, all that is necessary is that it was possible for a reasonable person to have thought less of Turner than he might have if he had known the omitted facts.
The only other omission the Court finds misleading is not really an omission but rather the confusion in the report about whether Turner drew up Foster’s will three days or three to four weeks before Foster died. The fact that Turner worked on Foster’s will for weeks instead of days was enough, the Court says, for a reasonable viewer to have thought better of him. Somewhat inconsistently, the Court concludes that an average viewer would not have cared whether the scam involved $6.5 million or only $875,000. Misstating the amount involved by a factor of seven could not have been misleading; misstating the time period Turner worked on the will by the same factor was misleading. My point is simply that if the standard for determining falsity is nothing more than what a reasonable viewer could have thought, almost any omission can pass.
A statement need not be absolutely true to avoid liability for defamation; substantial truth is enough.4 Under Texas law, “[t]he test used in deciding whether [a statement] is substantially true involves consideration of whether the alleged defamatory statement was more damaging to [the plaintiffs] reputation, in the mind of the average listener, than a truthful statement would have been.”5 The Court lowers the bar for determining whether the omission or juxtaposition of facts makes a report less than substantially true (what the Court calls “substantially false”). The relevant inquiry, according to the Court, is not whether the report was more damaging than a more complete statement would have been, but whether any omitted fact could have influenced the viewer’s thinking. Under this rule, a report that contains nothing but true facts but omits some facts is much less likely to be substantially true than a single incorrect statement. Since virtually any news report on a complex subject involves some editorial determination of what to include and what to exclude, the threat that the report may be found to have been false is increased by the test the Court uses in this case.
The Court’s test for falsity, combined with the high test for actual malice, makes its conclusions strikingly incongruous. According to the Court, Turner acted as legal counsel for a long-time friend, Thomas, and for Thomas’s Mend, inadvertently furthering an insurance scam that Turner himself knew nothing about. By omitting facts about technical aspects of the probate proceeding from their report, KTRK and Doleefino made it possible for a reasonable viewer to think that Turner knew of the scam and stood to benefit himself. But, the Court concludes, this veteran reporter was not a lawyer and did not appreciate the significance of what he was doing; he simply bungled the story by leaving out key facts. And had those facts been part of the report, it is possible that an average viewer — also a non-lawyer with no appreciation of the significance of the added information — might not have been as critical of Turner’s conduct. This is a crooked furrow to plough.
Public figures criticized in the public press frequently complain that the media has not told the whole story and that had it done so, they would have appeared in a more favorable light. In the Court’s view, free discourse is adequately protected from such complaints as long as the media can plausibly claim negligence and thereby defeat proof of actual malice. This is a tortuous approach to guarantying a fundamental freedom. I would simply require that a claim that a report is false because *134of the omission or juxtaposition of facts be proved by clear and convincing evidence.
I would hold that the proof of falsity in this case, as well as the proof of actual malice, is insufficient. Accordingly, I concur only in Parts I and III of the Court’s opinion and in the judgment.

. See Harte-Hanks Communications v. Connaughton, 491 U.S. 657, 661 n. 2, 109 S.Ct. 2678, 105 L.Ed.2d 562 (1989) (noting, but expressing no opinion, on the debate as to whether falsity mut be shown by clear and convincing evidence), and the cases cited therein.

. Ante at 117, 118.

. Ante at 118.

. McIlvain v. Jacobs, 794 S.W.2d 14, 15-16 (Tex.1990).

. Id. at 16 (emphasis added).