Court Opinion

ID: 9425812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:53.157425+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:57.705081
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Powell,
with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join,
dissenting.
Today the Court extends the rule of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964), to encompass every defamatory statement made in a context that falls within the majority’s expansive construction of the phrase “labor dispute.” Because this decision appears to allow both unions and employers to defame individual workers with little or no risk of being held accountable for doing so, I dissent.
I
Executive Order 11491 establishes for certain federal employees a legal system for labor-management relations essentially similar to that provided employees in the private sector by the National Labor Relations Act. (NLRA). The Court acknowledges that the two schemes are not identical but finds no persuasive reason to differentiate between them for the purpose of determining their pre-emptive impact on state libel law. With this much I agree.
The majority then concludes that the instant case is controlled by Linn v. Plant Guard Workers, 383 U. S. 53 (1966). In Linn the Court construed the NLRA to bar state libel judgments for defamatory statements made *292in a “labor dispute” covered by the Act, unless those statements were made “with knowledge of their falsity or with reckless disregard of whether they were true or false. . . .” Id., at 65. Thus the Court adopted as a rule of labor law pre-emption the constitutional standard of media liability for defamation originally enunciated for libel actions by public officials in New York Times Co., supra, and subsequently extended to public figures in Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S. 130 (1967). In the instant case the majority relies on the analogy to the NLRA to support its conclusion that Executive Order 11491 pre-empts the libel judgments in favor of these ap-pellees because liability was not premised on the knowing- or-reckless falsity standard that Linn held applicable to defamatory statements made in a “labor dispute.” I perceive no reason in law or in public policy for such a sweeping extension of New York Times. Linn is distinguishable on its facts and in its rationale, and the New York Times rule of knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth is therefore inapplicable to the case at hand.
Linn involved a classic confrontation between union and management locked in combat during an organizational campaign. Linn was assistant general manager of Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, Inc. Pinkerton’s employees were then the subject of an organizational campaign by the United Plant Guard Workers. In the course of that effort the union published a leaflet urging Pinkerton’s employees to join the union and allegedly accusing Linn of “lying” to the employees and “robbing” them of pay increases. Linn sued the union for libel, but the trial court held that the National Labor Relations Board had exclusive jurisdiction over the subject matter of the dispute. It found that Linn’s complaint charged the union with conduct arguably constituting an unfair labor practice under the NLRA and that *293San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 (1959), therefore required dismissal of the suit.
This Court disagreed with that reasoning. It recognized an “ 'overriding state interest’ in protecting [state] residents from malicious libels . . . ,” 383 U. S., at 61, and noted that federal labor law does not protect individuals against injury to reputation. Even where statements actionable as libel under state law would also constitute an unfair labor practice, the Board’s interest would be limited to their coercive or misleading character, and the Board would be powerless to award damages or take any other step to redress the injury to the reputation of a defamed individual. The Court therefore held that the NLRA does not wholly pre-empt state libel law, even where the subject matter of the libel action might also constitute an unfair labor practice under the Act. Even in that circumstance, the States remain free to award damages for defamatory falsehoods published with knowledge of their falsity or in reckless disregard of the truth.
The result of Linn is a rule of partial pre-emption. The States may award libel judgments on the basis of the knowing-or-reckless-falsity formulation but are preempted from allowing defamation plaintiffs to recover under any less demanding standard of liability. The level of pre-emption is defined by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. But the Linn rule of partial pre-emption has another dimension, one that distinguishes the case at hand. That is the scope of the rule — in other words, the range of circumstances in which state libel law is partially displaced by federal labor law. This is determined by the phrase “labor dispute.”
In Linn the Court relied on the presence of a “labor dispute” to justify partial pre-emption of state libel law, but it did not delineate the boundaries of that concept. Indeed, the Court had no occasion to do so, for, as we have seen, Linn involved a prototypical orga*294nizational campaign confrontation between labor and management. Given that factual setting, the Court found a potential conflict between federal labor law and state libel law. One side or the other could use defamation actions as an unauthorized weapon in the battle for the loyalty of unorganized employees and possibly undermine the federal policies favoring uninhibited debate between union and management. The instant dispute is so far removed from the factual setting in Linn that the considerations supporting partial pre-emption of state libel law in that case simply do not obtain here.
Appellant union had long been recognized by the postal authorities as the exclusive collective-bargaining representative for the letter carriers in the Richmond area. Of a maximum of 435 letter carriers in the unit, all save 15 were active union members. Thus the union was solidly entrenched, with approximately 96% of the letter carriers signed up. The three appellees were among those 15 employees who elected not to join the union. There is no evidence of concerted action by these 15 letter carriers; they were acting individually, motivated by principle or personal conviction or perhaps, as appellant union alleges, by a desire not to pay dues. In any event, the three appellees had worked as letter carriers for 14, 13, and 12 years, respectively, without any sort of trouble either with the postal authorities or with their fellow employees. In fact, there is no evidence that the appellees were involved in a dispute with anyone until the union officials became displeased with appellees’ exercise of their admitted right not to join the union and began to subject them to public ridicule and vilification.
The majority characterizes the union’s actions as part of an ongoing organization campaign, ante, at 267, and treats this situation as a “labor dispute” within the intendment of the Linn rule of partial pre-emption. But *295this is accurate only if federal labor law is sufficiently implicated to warrant pre-emption of state libel law whenever an employee declines an invitation to become a union member. Certainly, there was no dispute here between labor and management. There was also no conflict between competing labor organizations and no effort, either organized or otherwise, to encourage defection from appellant union. There was, in short, no dispute of any sort save the union’s attempt to coerce appellees by scurrilous and defamatory statements to do what they had an admitted legal right not to do. Thus the union, by its own coercive conduct, created a “dispute,” the presence of which, according to the majority, provides partial immunity from the consequences of its wrongdoing under state law.
In my view this is an unnecessary and unwise extension of Linn. Here there was no confrontation between powerful forces of labor and management, no clash of opposing economic interests that might warrant the attention of federal regulatory authorities, and hence no prospect whatever that reliance on state libel law might subvert the federal scheme for the fair and peaceful resolution of labor disputes. Yet the majority nevertheless holds that the state libel judgments entered below are pre-empted by federal labor law. This conclusion seems to me a needless denigration of the “overriding state interest” in compensating individuals for injury to reputation. Moreover, it leaves these ap-pellees without effective remedy for the wrong done them. Far from representing a powerful economic interest that could fight for itself within the federally created system of individual self-government, these appellees were defenseless individuals.* In their “dis*296pute” with the union, appellees found themselves in that state of helpless inequality that first gave social meaning to the labor movement. And after today’s decision, the individual employee’s exposure to harm without effective remedy is not limited to defamation by a labor union, for presumably a corporate employer may also claim the knowing-or-reckless-falsity privilege as a bar to liability for defamatory statements concerning an employee’s decision to join or remain in a union. I do not believe Linn can fairly be construed to warrant any such regressive result.
II
As an alternative basis for its decision, the Court concludes that appellees are prohibited from recovering because there was no libel, indeed no falsehood of any kind, in the union’s publication. According to the majority, the only factual allegation contained in the article was that appellees were “scabs,” as that term is used in the labor movement, and that “naming the appel-lees as scabs was literally and factually true.” Ante, at 283. It is true, of course, that appellees were identified by name as “scabs” in. the union newsletter, but it is also true that the use of the word “scab” was explicated by a long and vituperative article appearing immediately above appellees’ names. The only fair way to read this article is to substitute each appellee’s name for the word “scab” whenever it appears. So construed, the plain meaning and import of this publication was that appel-lees lacked character, that they had “rotten principles,” and that they were traitors to their God, their country, their families, and their friends. Appellants make no attempt to prove the truth of these accusations, contending instead that they were mere hyperbole involving no statement of fact. The majority accepts this argument, in my view erroneously.
*297It seems to me that the majority fails to distinguish between defamatory references to an anonymous group, class, or occupation, and a similar description of a named individual. It is one thing to say that lawyers are shysters and that doctors are quacks, but it is quite another matter — indeed, it is libelous per se — to publish that lawyer Jones is a shyster or that Dr. Smith is a quack. Here the union did not merely voice its opinion of “scabs” generally; it identified these appellees by name and specifically impugned their character.
I would hold that federal law does not prohibit appel-lees from recovering from appellant union for injury to reputation. I would reverse and remand for a new trial in accord with our decision in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., post, p. 323.

The publication was sent in the union's paper to all members and also was posted on the bulletin board. Appellees had no means to reply or defend their reputations.