Court Opinion

ID: 9649609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:03:24.663431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:13.010606
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION BY
MONTEMURO, J.:
¶ 1 I join the Majority’s conclusions that no neutral report privilege exists as such in Pennsylvania and that this case must be returned for retrial. I write separately, however, to note the analytical framework for proving abuse of the fair report privilege, which is and has remained unarguably viable for some time. See Sciandra v. Lynett, 409 Pa. 595, 187 A.2d 586 (1963); DeMary v. Latrobe Printing and Publishing Company et al., 762 A.2d 758 (Pa.Super.2000), appeal denied, 786 A.2d 988 (Pa.2001).
¶ 2 As the Majority accurately points out, the trial court regarded the two privileges as synonymous, their differences as semantic rather than substantive. Indeed, following the dicta of DiSalle v. P.G. Publishing Co., 375 Pa.Super. 510, 544 A.2d 1345 (1988), appeal denied, 521 Pa. 620, 557 A.2d 724 (1989), cert. denied, 492 U.S. 906, 109 S.Ct. 3216, 106 L.Ed.2d 566 (1989), the trial court regarded the neutral report privilege as an extension of the fair report privilege when applied to a particular set of facts. As the Majority observes, the trial court thus, erroneously, “found that [the neutral] privilege applied, based evidentiary rulings on this premise, and instructed the jury as such.” (Majority Op. at 298).
¶ 3 In DeMary, supra, an en banc panel of this Court recently reiterated the definition of the fair report privilege, which in Pennsylvania “protects the press from liability for the publication of defamatory material if the published material reports on an official action or proceeding.” Id. at 762. The privilege may be forfeited by a publisher who exaggerates or embellishes its account of the occasion, id., which must be “fair, accurate and complete.” Sciandra, supra at 589. Publication of defama*299tory material solely for the purpose of causing harm to the person defamed results in loss of the fair report privilege. DeMary, supra at 762. Whether a privileged occasion occurred is a matter for the defendant to establish and for the trial court to decide, Oweida v. Tribune-Review Publishing Company, 410 Pa.Super. 112, 599 A.2d 230, 235 (1991), but whether abuse of the privilege has occurred is a question for the jury. DeMary, supra at 763.
¶ 4 The DeMary Court held, albeit in the context of preliminary objections, that the burden of proof borne by a public figure in order to succeed in making out a defamation case against (a) media defendant(s) requires two types of malice to be demonstrated. “First, in order to make a prima facie case the plaintiff must show that the newspaper acted with actual malice toward the truthfulness of the statement.” Id. at 765. The actual malice referred to is that which was defined by the Supreme Court of the United States in New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964), as knowledge of the falsity of the defamatory statements or reckless disregard for their truth or falsity. DeMary, supra at 764. “Second, to defeat the fair report privilege once it has been properly raised, the plaintiff must show that the defendant was motivated by ill will toward the plaintiff,” id. at 765, that is, by common law malice. As the DeMary Court explains, “Actual malice focuses on the defendant’s attitude toward the truth, whereas common law malice focuses on the defendant’s attitude towards the plaintiff.” Id. at 764.
¶ 5 Here, the major problem is one of nomenclature: although the neutral report privilege does not exist, the fair report privilege does. The trial court conflated the two in ruling on evidentiary questions and in instructing the jury. The question then becomes whether the court’s actions, if analyzed according to the law pertaining to the fair report privilege, are still in error. Put another way, if the trial court’s rulings and instructions comply with the requirements of the fair report privilege, is the (theoretical) correctness of its decisions compromised by the court’s having referred, erroneously, to the controlling principle as the neutral report privilege? I believe this question must be answered in the affirmative, since, despite the trial court’s view of the two privileges as interchangeable, they are not. Accordingly, I agree with the Majority that the decision must be reversed, and this case retried.