Court Opinion

ID: 9712536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:55:44.153584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:12.795915
License: Public Domain

*543
Concurring opinion by

Murphy, C.J.:

While I concur with the result in this case, I think the majority has not fully explicated the basis for the decision of the Court of Special Appeals. That court’s opinion, in my judgment, merits further discussion.
The Court of Special Appeals held that the evidence before the trial court, when viewed in a light most favorable to Stack, was such that the trier of fact could conclude there was "clear and convincing” evidence of a reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of the statements made in the editorial. The court explained that:
"Appellee had no explanation for that portion of the editorial wherein Stack was accused of making many other statements in the campaign which had proven to be false. In short, at least so far as that part of the editorial which states 'as have many other things Stack has said in the campaign’ is concerned, it would appear that appellee could be found to have recklessly disregarded the truth or falsity of that statement; thus the fact finder could have found actual malice.”
Stack v. Capital-Gazette Newspapers, 48 Md. App. 429, 437, 427 A.2d 1066 (1981). The Court today lightly glosses over this holding with the assertion that:
"Casey’s testimony identifying two specific occasions on which he believed Stack had told untruths served as an adequate basis for this allegedly false defamatory editorial statement. That testimony supports an inference that the allegedly false defamatory editorial statement was not the product of the publisher’s imagination and was most assuredly not a calculated falsehood or lie.”
The mere fact that Stack may have lied on two previous occasions did not, as a matter of law, give the publisher carte blanche to accuse him of making other false statements, on *544the theoretical assumption that if Stack had lied before, surely he would always lie again.
I think the result today is justified because there was no evidence, clear, convincing, or otherwise, that Casey made the allegation with "[a] high degree of awareness of [its] probable falsity,” St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U.S. 727, 731, 88 S.Ct. 1323, 1325 (1968); or that the allegation was the product of Casey’s imagination; or so inherently improbable that only a reckless person would publish it. Id. at 732. Casey testified that he viewed the Stack ad, "Has Erie Schafer Sold Out,” as being:
"a smear and an innuendo. And in my mind, at least, an untruth.. .(Emphasis added.)
While this is only one "other occasion,” the record does not indicate that Casey made his statement purely as a matter of whim, or momentary caprice. Indeed, it establishes only that he could not recall every specific reason on which he based his statement, since more than a year and a half had elapsed since the editorial was published. At most, the statement could be characterized as "rhetorical hyperbole.” As the majority correctly notes, such hyperbole, in the circumstances of this case, falls within the boundaries of protected speech. It is for this reason that I would reverse the judgment below.
With these additional comments, I respectfully concur in this decision.