Pratt v. Nelson

Decision Date18 May 2007
Docket NumberNo. 20051167.,20051167.
PartiesNevin PRATT and Denise Pratt, Plaintiffs and Petitioners, v. Mary Ann NELSON (Roe); Douglas F. White; John Dustin Morris; William A. Mark; McKay, Burton, & Thurman, P.C.; and Does 1-200, Defendants and Respondents.
CourtUtah Supreme Court

Carl E. Kingston, F. Mark Hansen, Salt Lake City, for plaintiffs.

John Dustin Morris, Salt Lake City, Douglas F. White, Bountiful, William A. Mark, North Salt Lake, for defendants.

On Certiorari to the Utah Court of Appeals

DURRANT, Justice:

INTRODUCTION

¶ 1 The plaintiffs, Nevin and Denise Pratt (the "Pratts"), filed a defamation claim against the defendants, Mary Ann Nelson and her attorneys (the "Nelsons"). The Pratts' claim arose from statements the Nelsons made and distributed to the media during the course of a press conference.

¶ 2 We granted certiorari in this case and are presented with three issues: (1) whether the invited error doctrine precluded the Pratts on appeal from raising their argument concerning the judicial proceeding privilege; (2) whether the Nelsons' statements were absolutely privileged under the judicial proceeding privilege and, if so, whether they lost that privilege through excessive publication; and (3) whether the group defamation rule precluded the Pratts' defamation claim.

¶ 3 First, we hold that appellate review of the Pratts' argument regarding judicial privilege was not precluded by the invited error doctrine. Second, we hold that the Nelsons' statements, even if privileged, lost any immunity they may have had under the judicial proceeding privilege through excessive publication. Third, we hold that the group defamation rule does not preclude the Pratts' defamation claim. Therefore, we remand to the district court for further consideration of the Pratts' defamation claim.

BACKGROUND

¶ 4 On October 15, 1997, when Mary Ann Nelson1 was sixteen years old, her father, Daniel Kingston, allegedly forced her to marry her uncle, David Kingston. On August 1, 2003, Mary Ann and her counsel filed a complaint (the "Kingston Complaint") in Utah's Third District Court against her father, her uncle, and various other defendants, including Nevin and Denise Pratt, as well as the attorneys representing the Pratts in this case, F. Mark Hansen and Carl E. Kingston. In its opening caption, the Kingston Complaint named the Pratts, among nearly 400 other defendants—including individuals, businesses, churches, and associations—all of which allegedly had ties with the polygamous Kingston family and organization. Further, the body of the Kingston Complaint named the Pratts in a list with 240 other defendants known as "Order Individuals," and referred to these Order Individuals, along with 97 "Order Businesses," as "Order Members." The Kingston Complaint contained allegations of intentional and negligent sexual abuse of a child, assault, battery, false imprisonment, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and civil conspiracy. The Kingston Complaint alleged that Order Members, a group which specifically included the Pratts, were negligent and had assisted, encouraged, conspired, or knew of and failed to prevent or report the abuses alleged to have been committed by Mary Ann's father and uncle.

¶ 5 On August 28, 2003, Mary Ann and her counsel held a press conference concerning the lawsuit to which they invited members of both the Utah local press and the Associated Press. Ultimately, the press conference made local, national, and international news, reaching various media throughout the world via newspaper, television, and the internet. At that press conference, Mary Ann and at least two of her attorneys made several statements regarding the defendants listed in the Kingston Complaint. These statements did not specifically mention the Pratts by name, but instead made general reference to the "society," the "organization," and "the Order." Additionally, Mary Ann's attorneys provided copies of the previously filed Kingston Complaint to members of the press. They also gave copies of Mary Ann's prepared written statement (the "Prepared Statement") to two or three reporters.2 One of Mary Ann's attorneys told reporters that the individuals identified by name in the complaint were "the key members of the Kingston organization" and that the Nelsons were trying to punish and "make an example of them."

¶ 6 On February 11, 2004, the Pratts filed a complaint alleging, among other claims, that the Nelsons had defamed the Pratts at the press conference and through the publicity that resulted from it. In response, the Nelsons filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The Pratts filed a memorandum in opposition to the motion to dismiss, and the Nelsons responded with a reply memorandum in support of their motion to dismiss. In their reply memorandum, the Nelsons argued for the first time that the judicial proceeding privilege precluded any of the Pratts' defamation claims that were founded on the Kingston Complaint. In addition, the Nelsons included with their reply memorandum the affidavit of William Mark, one of Mary Ann's attorneys who were present at the press conference. Mark's affidavit averred that the Nelsons had only generally referred to the defendants named in the Kingston Complaint, never mentioning the Pratts by name. The district court entered an order converting the Nelsons' motion to dismiss into one for summary judgment and allowing the parties to file supplemental pleadings.

¶ 7 On May 7, 2004, the district court issued an order stating that the Nelsons' reply memorandum had raised the judicial proceeding privilege for the first time. In the interest of fairness, the district court granted the Pratts eight days to respond solely to that issue. But the Pratts did not file their responsive memorandum until over a month after the district court's deadline for filing had passed. The Pratts offered no explanation for their late filing, nor did they seek an extension of the deadline. The Nelsons moved to strike the Pratts' late response. The Pratts filed a memorandum opposing the Nelsons' motion to strike and moved to strike the Nelsons' judicial privilege argument as improperly raised for the first time in a reply memorandum.

¶ 8 On August 17, 2004, the district court entered its ruling on all pending motions. The district court granted the Nelsons' motion to strike the Pratts' late memorandum, ruling that the memorandum would not be considered because it was unauthorized under rule 7 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. The district court also denied the Pratts' motion to strike the Nelsons' judicial privilege argument, reasoning that the Pratts had been given the opportunity to address the argument but had chosen not to respond within the allotted time and were "solely to blame for their own late filing" and could not "complain of unfairness." The district court then considered the Nelsons' motion for summary judgment.

¶ 9 The district court concluded that the Kingston Complaint was protected by the judicial proceeding privilege, which "acts as an absolute bar to the Pratts' claim of defamation arising from allegations made in [the Kingston C]omplaint." The district court also held that the Prepared Statement was not defamatory toward the Pratts, as a matter of law, because the statement never specifically mentioned the Pratts, but only referred to a larger group of persons, such as the "leaders of the Kingston organization," "the people that we are bringing this lawsuit against," and "the Kingston Family Organization." The district court concluded that "no reasonable jury could interpret the [Prepared S]tatement to refer to [the Pratts] specifically."

¶ 10 The Pratts appealed to the Utah Court of Appeals, which affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment.3 The court of appeals did not reach the merits of the Pratts' challenge to the district court's application of the judicial proceeding privilege because the Pratts "invited any error in the trial court's ruling."4 The court of appeals held that the invited error doctrine precluded the Pratts from arguing this issue on appeal and, as a result, affirmed the district court's ruling "dismissing the Pratts' claims that [were] founded upon their names appearing in the Kingston Complaint."5 Consequently, the Pratts could not "rely on any references to them in the Kingston Complaint to support their claims based on statements the [Nelsons] made at the press conference."6 Thus, the court of appeals concluded that under the group defamation rule "the [Nelsons' other] statements cannot, therefore, be reasonably understood to refer to the Pratts without the aid of the Kingston Complaint."7

¶ 11 We granted certiorari as to the issues presented above and have jurisdiction pursuant to Utah Code section 78-2-2(5).

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 12 "On certiorari, we review the court of appeals' decision for correctness, focusing on whether that court correctly reviewed the trial court's decision under the appropriate standard of review."8 "In the context of a summary judgment motion, which presents a question of law, we employ a correctness standard and view the facts and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the non-moving party."9

ANALYSIS

¶ 13 We are presented with three issues regarding the Pratts' defamation claim. We will first discuss our invited error doctrine and its application to this and other cases. Next, we will discuss the judicial proceeding privilege and the excessive publication rule, specifically with respect to statements made and distributed during a press conference. Finally, we will discuss the group defamation rule and its application to the statements at issue in this case.

I. THE INVITED ERROR DOCTRINE

¶ 14 This case initially turns on whether the Pratts may make an argument on appeal regarding the judicial proceeding privilege. The court of...

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