Court Opinion

ID: 9655210
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:02:38.955142+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:16.635768
License: Public Domain

GRAVES, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority presents a sound and thorough explanation of the law of defamation in Kentucky. However, the legal analysis presented in the majority opinion reminds me of Mark Twain’s observation, “Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain’t so.” Truth is a complete defense to defamation claims; unfortunately, the sophistry of persuasive attorneys has convinced both the jury and this Court of an unreasonable interpretation of the alleged defamatory statement.
The statement that, “ ‘[tjhere was more to it than that’ and that he couldn’t talk about it” appears to be the jackpot in the majority’s search for anything capable of a defamatory meaning. Unfortunately, there is nothing in that statement that a reasonable juror could find defamatory. The statement is clearly offensive to a disgruntled employee, and while I sympathize with Appellants’ attitude toward their former employer, I fail to find any reasonable defamatory meaning to an objective observer that would establish Appellees’ liability. Of all the facts alleged in Appellants’ brief, I found the statement made by the Assistant Manager reflected a measure of decorum in that it conveyed nothing at all. “There’s more to it than that” generally means, “I don’t want to talk about it:” an interpretation that seems exceptionally reasonable when he continued to say exactly that. The statement would not imply any wrongdoing to a reasonable listener.
Here, Appellants’ own admissions established the truth of Wal-Mart’s statements regarding Appellants’ terminations. Appellants’ defamation claim is that Wal-Mart and Whitaker implied to others that Appellants were thieves. Yet, all four of these former employees admit that it was they — not their employer — who used the terminology “thief’ to describe the reason for their discharge.
Even assuming that Mr. Whitaker “imputed” theft as the reason for Appellants’ discharge, the statement is true.1 A thief is someone who takes something that does not belong to him. Or, as the Court of Appeals correctly reasoned: “The simple fact is that Appellees ‘took’ company property without paying; this constituted theft of such company property.”
Even though the food Appellants admitted eating had no value to Wal-Mart and could not be paid for, Appellants’ “destined for the dumpster” argument is wholly irrelevant to the fact that they violated the company’s dishonesty policy. It is also disingenuous in that it ignores the fundamental distinction between taking *803merchandise from the claims area before the claims clerk is able to process it— which deprives Wal-Mart of receiving credit for damaged goods — and consuming merchandise in the employees’ lounge with management approval after it has been processed and accounted for in order to maintain inventory control. For claims processing purposes, the candy had residual value to Wal-Mart and Appellants had no right to appropriate it.
Mr. Whitaker’s policy is undisputed: employees cannot eat anything from claims before it is recorded and accounted for, and even then not without permission. Appellants admit this fact. At the employee meeting several days before Appellants were fired, Mr. Whitaker reiterated the policy in no uncertain terms: “And, if anyone has taken anything without paying for it, then you need to stop it immediately.”
Likewise, Appellants point to the testimony of John Pennycuff, a disgruntled former employee of Wal-Mart and former brother-in-law of Ms. Sparks, for the notion that eating claims candy before processing is okay. Mr. Pennycuffs testimony is probative of nothing about the Monticello store policies in 1995. Mr. Pennycuff had not been employed with the Monticello store for three years before Appellants were terminated. He admitted having no personal knowledge of either how they were discharged or how Mr. Whitaker enforced the written policy against dishonesty.
It is true that Appellants consumed unprocessed claims merchandise belonging to Wal-Mart. It is also true that consuming claims merchandise is a violation of Wal-Mart’s honesty policy. It is finally true, then, as marked on Appellants’ termination forms, that they were discharged for violation of company policy and unauthorized removal of company property.
Based on the truth defense and the unreasonableness of a defamatory meaning to any of the alleged defamatory statements, I would affirm the Court of Appeals. The alleged defamation was not only substantially true, but also true in its essential parts.
COOPER, J., and WINTERSHEIMER, J., join in this dissent.

. The fact that Appellants had to rely on claims of "imputation,” effectively concedes the fact that they could not, and clearly did not, prove that any of the actual words spoken or written about them by Wal-Mart were false. See Pierce v. Capital Cities Communications, Inc., 576 F.2d 495, 509 (3rd Cir.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 861, 99 S.Ct. 181, 58 L.Ed.2d 170 (1978) (claim of false implications "by its own terms, concedes that no specific statement... was incorrect”).