Chapter 5 Libel Proof of Fault INTRODUCTION In 1964 the U S Supreme Court ruled that a libel plaintiff was required to show that a defendant had been at fault when the defamatory material was published Before then civil libel law had been governed by the doctrine of strict liability which held a libel defendant responsible for harming a plaintiff regardless of how cautious or careful he or she had been in preparing and publishing or broadcasting the story Libel law was infused with First Amendment considerations The two basic considerations relevant to fault Who is the plaintiff How was the story or material processed or prepared NEW YORK TIMES v SULLIVAN In the Deep South in the late 1950s and early 1960s a difficult and often violent struggle for civil rights was taking place Blacks used various acts of nonviolent civil disobedience to challenge a wide range of voting accommodation and education laws that left them as second class citizens Network television news was still in its early adolescence in this era NBC and CBS carried only 15 minutes of news each night The story of the civil rights movement was carried throughout the nation via a handful of prestigious and frequently liberal newspapers especially The New York Times Segregationist leaders in the South hated these newspapers which each day carried stories and pictures of another peaceful civil rights protest that had been met with violence or some other illegal act by city county or state officials or by angry southern citizens On March 20 1960 the Times carried an editorial advertisement titled Heed Their Rising Voices The ad was placed by an ad hoc coalition of civil rights leaders called the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South The text of the ad leveled charges against public officials in the South who the committee contended had used violence and illegal tactics to try to quell the peaceful civil rights struggle The basic thrust of the charges contained in the ad was true but the ad was filled with small factual errors L B Sullivan the Montgomery AL police commissioner brought suit against the newspaper seeking 500 000 in damages for false and defamatory statements about the conduct of the Montgomery police department A trial court ruled on behalf of Sullivan and his 500 000 damage reward was upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court The U S Supreme Court reversed the decision ruling that Sullivan could not recover damages in this case unless he proved that The New York Times published the false and defamatory ad knowing it was false or that the paper exhibited reckless disregard for the truth when it printed the material That is Sullivan had to show that the newspaper had actually lied when it printed the ad knowledge of falsity or that the persons who published the ad both members of the committee and the members of the newspaper staff had been extraordinarily careless by not examining the charges made in the statement much more carefully reckless disregard for the truth Justice William Brennan labeled these two elements actual malice proof of knowledge of falsity or proof of reckless disregard for the truth was proof of actual malice The language in the court s opinion extended the ruling in this case to all people whom the court called public officials Public official The designation of a plaintiff in a libel suit who is an elected public officer or is an appointed public officer who has or appears to have considerable responsibility for or control over the conduct of government affairs All public officials who sought to win a libel suit based on defamatory allegations about how they did their jobs or whether they were fit to hold those jobs henceforth would have to prove actual malice THE RATIONALE FOR THE RULING 1 Stripped of its civil libel cover the case was clearly one of seditious libel 2 The nation has a profound and long standing national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited robust and wide open Freedom of expression Brennan noted needs breathing space to survive 3 When public officials like Sullivan take a government post they must expect that their work will be closely scrutinized and even criticized by the people they serve By the end of the decade the Supreme Court extended the actual malice rule to people called public figures Public figure The designation for a plaintiff in a libel suit who has voluntarily entered a public controversy in an effort to influence public opinion in order to generate a resolution of the issue In 1974 the high court added the final element to the libel fault rule when it declared that even private persons must prove that the mass medium was at fault when the libel was published or broadcast Summary of the fault rules to this point 1 Private persons who sue the media for defamation must at least prove that the material was published through negligence Negligence is defined in the law as failure to exercise reasonable care 2 Individuals who have been deemed to be public persons for purposes of a libel suit against a mass medium have to prove that the defendant exhibited actual malice when the material was published Actual malice is defined in the law as publishing with the knowledge that the libelous assertion is false or with reckless disregard for whether it is true or false PUBLIC PERSONS VERSUS PRIVATE PERSONS All libel plaintiffs who sue the mass media must prove that the defendant in the case was at fault that the publication or broadcast of the libelous material was not simply the result of an innocent error Public officials and public figures have to prove a higher level of fault than do private individuals One of the problems in libel law is that courts have attached slightly different meanings to common everyday words WHO IS A PUBLIC OFFICIAL Two questions must be asked to determine whether a libel plaintiff should be considered a public official 1 Who is the plaintiff what kind of government job does he or she have What is the job description 2 What was the allegedly libelous story about What is the nature of the story Job Description Three general rules 1 Any person who is elected to public office to even the most lowly public office qualifies as a public official 2 Individuals who are appointed to or hired for government jobs may qualify as public persons in a libel action It depends on the nature of the job 3 But not everyone who works for the government will be regarded as a
View Full Document
Unlocking...