Court Opinion

ID: 9700432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:28:21.774354+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:09.122772
License: Public Domain

HABHAB, Judge
(specially concurring).
Although I concur with each division of the majority’s opinion, I feel compelled to add the following.
Although bizarre, the facts of this case are simple. Three checks were written by defendant Sue Den Ouden with the payee named *169as “Friend of Court — D4084.” The three checks set forth at the “for” line those statements which form the basis for this suit. Sue did not refer to plaintiff in any of the checks by name.1 As it relates to those checks, each was written to satisfy Christian Den Ouden’s support obligations to his children and alimony payments to plaintiff Marlene Suntken.
The majority begins its discussion on the defamation claim by correctly finding there was not libel per se in this case. The majority then correctly sets out the requirements for recovery in situations where the alleged defamation is not libel per se, but rather libel per quod. In such situations, plaintiff must prove: (1) defendant wrote the statements; (2) the statements are false; (3) defendant made the statements with malice; (4) defendant communicated the statements to someone other than plaintiff; (5) the statements injured the reputation of plaintiff or exposed her to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule; and (6) plaintiff was damaged as a result. II Iowa Civ. Jury Instruction 2100.3 (1989).
Generally speaking, not all insulting, annoying, or name-calling statements are defamatory.
Statements which are merely annoying or embarrassing or no more than rhetorical hyperbole or a vigorous epithet are not defamatory. Similarly, nasty epithets, however vitriolic, are not libelous. Words that are mere name-calling or found to be rhetorical hyperbole or are employed only in a loose, figurative sense have been deemed nonactionable.
50 Am.Jur.2d Libel and Slander 159, at 449 (1995) (emphasis added). It has been further stated:
The common law has always differentiated sharply between genuinely defamatory communications as opposed to obscenities, vulgarities, insults, epithets, name-calling, and other verbal abuse. No matter how mean or vulgar, such language is not defamatory. It is not defamatory, for example, to call someone a “bastard,” or a “son of a bitch,” or an “idiot.” No matter how obnoxious, insulting, or tasteless such name-calling, it is regarded as a part of life for which the law of defamation affords no remedy.
Rodney A. Smolla, Law of Defamation § 4.03, at 4-12 (1995). The statements made on the checks should not be considered defamatory under the authority stated above.
While plaintiff may be embarrassed and undoubtedly annoyed by the words set forth in the cheeks, I am unable to conclude such statements exposed her to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule as required under element five where libel per quod is involved, nor can I conclude they injured her reputation.2
But even assuming arguendo somehow the words are libelous, there is yet the question of damages. The plaintiff must carry this burden. Since proof of injury to the reputation and feelings without proof of special damages is sufficient to authorize a verdict for a plaintiff when libel per se is involved, to construe actual damages as applying to the special damages required to be shown where libel per se is not involved would in effect eliminate the difference between libel per se and libel per quod. Jamison v. First Georgia Bank, 193 Ga.App. 219, 387 S.E.2d 375 (1985).
Here the alleged libelous language is not actionable per se. Such being the case, the plaintiff is not entitled to recover what is known as general damages; the plaintiff is entitled to recover special damages. Shaw Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. v. Des Moines Dress Club, 215 Iowa 1130, 1137, 245 N.W. 231, 234 (1932). Turning to section 575 of Restatement (Second) of Torts (1977), I note “special harm” as used in the Restatement “is the loss of something having economic or pecuni*170ary value.” “The limitation has persisted in the requirement that special harm, to serve as the foundation of an action for slander that is not actionable per se, must be ‘temporal,’ ‘material,’ pecuniary or economic in character.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 575 cmt b (1977).3 In addition, the Restatement provides:
Special harm must result from the conduct of a person other than the defamer or the one defamed and must be legally caused by the defamation. It is, however, immaterial whether the harmful action is taken because the person who takes it believes the defamation, or because he is unwilling to deal or to associate with one whose reputation has been impaired by it. Loss of reputation alone is not enough to make the defamer liable under the rule stated in this Section unless it is reflected in some kind of economic or pecuniary loss. So too, lowered social standing and its purely social consequences are not sufficient. Thus the fact that a slander has caused the person defamed to lose caste in the eyes of his friends and so has deprived him of many pleasant social contacts is not special harm.

Id.

I do not believe plaintiffs proof rises to the level of substantial evidence to support the damage element. I agree with the majority this case must be reversed.
CADY and STREIT, JJ., join in this special concurrence.

. There is a reference on one of the checks to "ex-wife.”

. There is case law to support a finding the use of the word "psycho” is not libelous. When one employee tells another employee that a third employee (the plaintiff) is "crazy,” it was found not to be libel. Kryeski v. Schott Glass Technologies, 426 Pa.Super. 105, 626 A.2d 595, 601 (1993). A federal court has found that use of the words "paranoid” and "schizophrenic” are not defamatory where there was no proof they were used in reference to an actual psychological condition. Fram v. Yellow Cab Co., 380 F.Supp. 1314, 1329 (W.D.Pa.1974).