Court Opinion

ID: 9459039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:08:46.309069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:59.496038
License: Public Domain

KILEY, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur. Judge Stevens has written a persuasive opinion. It is with considerable reluctance, however, that I concur. The reluctance is due to my fear that we may have in this opinion pushed through what I consider the outer limits of the First Amendment protection against liability for libelous statements and have further eroded the interest of non-“public figures” in their personal privacy.
Gertz, a reputable attorney, is virtually called a Communist in an article written by Stang and adopted by Stanley without the latter making any inquiry on his own as to whether there was a reasonable basis for calling Gertz a Communist.
This is not the Rosenbloom case, 403 U.S. 29, 91 S.Ct. 1811, 29 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971). Rosenbloom was the publisher of “nudist magazines,” and the news broadcast by defendant implicitly referred to Rosenbloom as a “smut distributor” and a “girly-peddler.” The involvement of the non-“publie figure” with an issue of public interest is a consideration which moved the Supreme Court to apply the New York Times rule in Rosenbloom. I cannot find that Gertz was closely involved with the asserted national Communist conspiracy, as Rosenbloom was with the “smut literature racket.”
Yet Judge Stevens shows that the trend of the Supreme Court decisions requires “in this close case” the conclusion that the district court did not err in entering the judgment for defendant, notwithstanding the verdict for Gertz.