Court Opinion

ID: 9669218
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:44:11.478497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:50.552950
License: Public Domain

O’CONNOR, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent from the majority’s resolution of points of error four, five, and six, regarding the February 21 article, and point of error 45, regarding Urban’s affidavit.
The plaintiffs contend the Chronicle did not establish that the February 21 article was substantially true because (1) the Chronicle did not prove the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was investigating Haidar Bar-bouti, (2) the Chronicle did not prove the DIA was reviewing the letter to Barbouti purportedly from Raja Hassan Ali, and (3) Urban’s affidavit contained untrue statements, unsubstantiated opinion, and was not made on personal knowledge.
The February 21, 1992 article carried the headline, “Letter triggers new probe of Bar-bouti.” As part of the article, the newspaper included a picture of Moammar Gadhafi. The article in its entirety appears in the majority opinion, slip op. pp. 40-41.
Barbouti’s affidavit states that
This letter [to which the February 21,1992 article refers] does not exist. I never received any such letter, I do not know nor have I ever met its purported sponsor or author Raja Hassan Ali, I do not know nor have I ever met Abdullah al-Senoussi. Defendant Urban refused in deposition to disclose the source of the letter (Urban dep. p. 247) or what efforts he made to authenticate it or determine whether it was a forgery or fabrication (Urban dep. p. 248), in each case relying on and refusing to disclose a “confidential source.”
In Urban’s affidavit attached to the Chronicle’s motion for summary judgment, Urban supported the first two paragraphs of the article with the following statement:
I have long been aware of numerous federal investigations into alleged criminal activities of Haidar Barbouti, his father, Dr. Ishan Barbouti, and companies owned or controlled by Haidar and Ishan Barbou-ti, including not only the Department of Defense investigation referred to in the February 21,1992 article, but also criminal investigations by the United States Custom Service....
The majority opinion overrules point of error 45 in footnote nine, on the ground that Barbouti did not apply the authority he cited to the argument. The majority concedes Barbouti cited authority, but faults him for not applying it. Barbouti’s brief “applies” the law as well as most briefs filed in this Court. See pages 57 and 58 of Barbouti’s brief.
The Chronicle could have based its motion for summary judgment on the uncontrovert-ed affidavit of an interested witness (Urban), but only if the affidavit was clear, positive, direct, or otherwise credible, free from contractions and inconsistencies, and could have been effectively countered by opposing evidence. Casso v. Brand, 776 S.W.2d 551, 558 *75(Tex.1989); Republic Nat’l Leasing Corp. v. Schindler, 717 S.W.2d 606, 607 (Tex.1986). In an affidavit supporting a motion for summary judgment, the affiant must show how he became personally familiar with the facts to be able to testify as a witness. Radio Station KSCS v. Jennings, 750 S.W.2d 760, 762 (Tex.1988); Clark v. Pruett, 820 S.W.2d 903, 906 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1991, no writ). By Urban’s statement “I have long been aware ...” Urban does not show how he is competent to testify about the existence of the DIA investigation. See Carr v. Hertz Corp., 737 S.W.2d 12, 13 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi 1987, no writ) (attorney’s affidavit which stated he was “aware” of facts stated in response to motion for summary judgment was insufficient to show how he was competent to testify regarding issues of negligence).
The majority finds that Urban’s reference to the eight exhibits supports his statement. None of the exhibits deals with a DIA investigation. Even if other federal agencies were investigating Barbouti (which the exhibits do not show), the DIA would not confirm or deny that it was investigating Barbouti. In his affidavit, Urban provided no information to support the article’s statement that the DIA was investigating Barbouti. When Urban could not support the statement with any evidence, the Chronicle should have refrained from publishing it. Therefore, Urban’s statement does not prove the substantial truth that the DIA was investigating Barbou-ti’s connections with a suspected terrorist. See Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U.S. 496, 516, 111 S.Ct. 2419, 2432-33, 115 L.Ed.2d 447 (1991); McIlvain v. Jacobs, 794 S.W.2d 14, 15 (Tex.1990).1
The majority also finds that the tag “congressional sources say” somehow absolves the Chronicle because it admittedly published only rumor, not fact. Nothing in Urban’s affidavit supports his “congressional sources” statement. Even if Urban was to repeat that in his affidavit, the attribution of a defamatory statement to unnamed persons does not absolve the Chronicle of liability for publishing the statement.
The second issue on which I disagree with the majority’s result concerns the statement that the DIA was reviewing a letter to Bar-bouti purportedly from Raja Hassan AJi. As stated earlier, the Urban affidavit does not support the statement that Barbouti was being investigated by the DIA. By making the statement in the article that Barbouti was being investigated by the DIA about the letter from Raja Hassan All, the Chronicle provided specific information about the investigation that seemed to support its initial statement that Barbouti was being investigated by the DIA. (The majority does not address this issue.) Not only did the Chronicle not prove that Barbouti was being investigated by the DIA, it did not show that the DIA (or any federal agency) was investigating Barbouti about the letter. The only information Urban could provide about the letter was that he saw that it was filed in a civil suit, which does not prove the substantial truth of the statement that Barbouti was being investigated by the DIA.
The third issue on which I disagree with the majority concerns the letter purportedly written to Haidar Barbouti, which mentions Abdullah al-Senoussi, a brother-in-law of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi. The majority holds that Barbouti’s denial of the existence of the letter did not raise a fact issue concerning the physical existence of the letter. I disagree. By his affidavit, Barbouti raised a fact issue about it. Once Barbouti raised a fact issue, the burden was on the defendants to show the letter was what it purported to be; they did not.
The majority says the letter supports itself. A letter, like any document, requires a sponsor to verify that it is what it purports to be. Tex.R.Civ.Evid. 901(a) (“authentication ... is satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its proponent claims”); In re G.F.O., 874 S.W.2d 729, 731 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1994, no writ). The plaintiffs objected *76to the letter because they believed it was a forgery or a fraud. They attempted to conduct discovery and find out where Urban got it, but were thwarted by the Chronicle’s assertion of “confidentiality.” The Chronicle should not be permitted to thwart discovery based on a privilege of “confidentiality” and move for summary judgment on the very same issue. See, e.g., Dolcefino v. Ray, 902 S.W.2d 163, 164 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1995, orig. proceeding) (Texas does not recognize a privilege of confidentiality for journalists).
The letter, without any sponsor, is merely a piece of paper. Without a sponsor, the letter is no evidence that a person by the name of Raja Hassan Ali wrote a letter to Barbouti. Neither is the letter evidence that a third entity, the DIA, was investigating Barbouti based on the letter. I would sustain the points of error as they relate to the letter as evidence. Once the letter is subtracted as a source of summary judgment support for the February 21 article, the article lacks any summary judgment proof to show it was substantially true.
In summary, Urban’s affidavit does not prove the substantial truth of the gist of the February 21 article — that because of the letter from Ali, the DIA was investigating Hai-dar’s connections with a terrorist, who was a brother-in-law of Moammar Gadhafi. See McIlvain, 794 S.W.2d at 16.
I would hold the defendants did not prove underlying facts establishing the substantial truth of the February 21 article. I would sustain points of error four, five, six, and 45.

. The majority admits the articles were "not 100 percent accurate in every detail," but finds they were substantially true. In Masson, 501 U.S. at 516, 111 S.Ct. at 2432-33, the United States Supreme Court said the law of libel "overlooks minor inaccuracies.” Here, the majority overlooks major inaccuracies to find the article was substantially true.