Court Opinion

ID: 9472695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:07:40.955335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:04.734513
License: Public Domain

BONSAL, District Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in much of the majority’s excellent opinion. I agree that the plaintiff must be considered a limited purpose public figure who has voluntarily injected herself into an on-going controversy through her writings and media appearances. I also agree with the majority that the case of Davis v. High Society Magazine, Inc., 90 A.D.2d 374, 457 N.Y.S.2d 308 (2d Dept. 1982) is “strikingly similar to this one.” In Davis, as here, the trial court granted summary judgment for the plaintiff without considering whether the defendant had acted with actual malice. The Appellate Division held that, as a limited purpose public figure, the plaintiff had to establish that the defendant had acted with actual malice in order to recover under New York Civil Rights Law § 51. Finding insufficient evidence in the record to establish that the defendant had acted with actual malice, it reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment, stating:
[Tjhere is an element of plaintiff’s cause of action which is in dispute and which cannot be resolved on this motion. It is incumbent upon plaintiff to prove at trial that defendants published the subject issue of Celebrity Skin with actual malice .... Davis, at 383, 457 N.Y.S.2d 308.
The court in Davis noted that “[t]he existence or absence of actual malice ‘does not lend itself to summary disposition’ since it pertains to ‘a defendant’s state of mind.’ ” Davis, at 384, 457 N.Y.S.2d 308 (quoting Hutchinson v. Proxmire, 443 U.S. 111, 120 n. 9, 99 S.Ct. 2675, 2680 n. 9, 61 L.Ed.2d 411 (1979)).
While I agree with the majority that the plaintiff here has a heavy burden to establish actual malice, I do not think that is sufficient reason to deny her the opportunity to do so. Therefore, I would remand the case to the trial court to give her an opportunity for further discovery and a trial on the issue of actual malice — whether defendant acted with knowledge of falsity or in reckless disregard of the truth.