Court Opinion

ID: 9578164
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:42:21.297221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:24:58.394249
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
concurring specially:
I write only to emphasize the last issue treated by the Court relating to the trial court’s tabling the newspaper’s motion for summary judgment. In Hemingway v. Fritz, 96 Idaho 364, 529 P.2d 264 (1974), we held that a libel defendant’s refusal to respond to discovery would not preclude the issuance of a motion for summary judgment in favor of the defendant if the record on motion for summary judgment disclosed that all the alleged libelous statements were true. As the Court points out in its opinion, ante at 108, “Sierra has not pointed out how revelation of sources would have been instrumental in establishing that the articles were in fact false.” Therefore, on remand, if the record in support of the defendants’ motion for summary judgment establishes the truthfulness of the alleged libelous statements, and the defendants are unable to demonstrate “how revelation of [the] sources would have been instrumental in establishing that the articles were in fact false,” summary judgment should be en*802tered in favor of the defendants. Hemingway v. Fritz, supra.