Court Opinion

ID: 9528669
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:42:58.31322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:12.405924
License: Public Domain

CRONE, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority’s opinion in all respects except for its affirmance of the trial court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of Gibson on Baker’s claim that Gibson defamed him by telling a third party that he suffered from mental illness. Because I believe that a bare assertion that someone suffers from mental illness is sufficient to constitute slander per se, I respectfully dissent as to that issue.
In its scholarly analysis of defamation jurisprudence, the majority notes that “[a] defamatory communication is one that ‘tend[s] to harm a person’s reputation by lowering the person in the community’s estimation or deterring third persons from dealing or associating with that person.’ ” Op. at 82 (quoting Rambo, 587 N.E.2d at 145). The majority further observes that ‘“[wjhether [a communication] is defamatory “depends, among other factors, upon the temper of the times, the current of contemporary public opinion, with the result that words, harmless in one age, in one community, may be highly damaging to reputation at another time or in a different place.” ’ ”■ Id. at 82 (quoting Journal-Gazette Co., 712 N.E.2d at 451 n. 6). Then, in discussing the four categories of per se slander, the majority states that “the ground for providing one with a cause of action stemming from an accusation of suffering a loathsome disease ‘is the presumption that the party charged will be wholly or partially excluded from society by reason of the charge.’ ” Id. at 84 (quoting Nichols, 2 Ind. at 83).
As much as we might wish matters to be otherwise, persons suffering from mental illness have long been “excluded” from our society. Students of history will remember that in 1972, Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton withdrew as the Democratic vice-presidential candidate after it was revealed that he had been hospitalized three times for “nervous exhaustion” during the 1960s and had received “electric-shock therapy for depression” on two of those occasions. Time.com, McGovern’s First Crisis: The Eagleton Affair (Aug. 7,1972), available at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/ 0,9171,879139-2,00.html. Nearly four decades later, I find it telling that the National Institute of Mental Health maintains a Stigma and Health Disparities Program, which “is concerned with mental illness stigma and discrimination- and mental health disparities” and “supports research to understand better the processes underlying stigma and discrimination; to develop effective strategies and approaches for reducing stigma and discrimination; and to examine media influences on attitudes about mental illness and its treatment.” National Institute of Mental Health, Stigma and Health Disparities Program, http:// www.nimh.nih.gov/about/organization/ *88dahbr/health-and-behavior-researeh-branch/stigma-and-health-disparities-program.shtml (last visited June 16, 2008).5 Closer to home, an Indiana government website proclaims as a “fact” that “consumers” of the Family and Social Services Administration’s Division of Mental Health and Addiction “have multiple barriers to overcome when living in communities including: stigma associated with their illness, lack of income or a job, lack of appropriate health care, and a lack of housing.” Indiana Family & Social Services Administration, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Office of Consumer & Family Affairs, http://www.in.gov/fssa/ dmha/4339.htm (last visited June 16, 2008).
In my view, the fact that mental illness is not communicable does not make it inherently less “loathsome” in the slander context than a physical disease such as leprosy6 or syphilis. It is true, as the majority suggests, that mental illness has many forms and varying levels of severity, and it is precisely for this reason that I believe a “bare charge of mental illness” constitutes slander per se. Op. at 85. The clear and unmistakable import of such an accusation is that the affected person is unstable and untrustworthy and deserves to be excluded from society. Consequently, I would reverse and remand with instructions to enter summary judgment in favor of Baker on this defamation claim.

. In a similar vein, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration operates the Resource Center to Promote Acceptance, Dignity and Social Inclusion Associated with Mental Health, which "provides information and advice on countering discrimination and stigma associated with mental illness.” Resource Center to Promote Acceptance, Dignity and Social Inclusion, http://www.stopstigma.samhsa.gov/main/ aboutus.aspx (last visited June 16, 2008). Many nongovernmental organizations, such as Mental Health America (formerly known as the National Mental Health Association), also provide information and advice regarding the stigma associated with mental illness.

. According to McGill University's Centre for the Study of Host Resistance,
Research conducted over 100 years has strongly suggested that genetic factors participate in host susceptibility to leprosy. Work at our Centre by the group of E. Schurr has shed new light on the genetic component of leprosy susceptibility and identified the NRAMP1 gene as an important genetic control element of leprosy susceptibility.
McGill University, Centre for the Study of Host Resistance, Diseases Studied, Leprosy, http://www.mcgill.ca/hostres/diseasesAeprosy (last visited June 16, 2008). As with mental illness, the basis for the social stigma associated with leprosy is scientifically questionable at best.