19 Cal.4th 1073A, Khawar v. Globe Intern., Inc.
| Citation | 19 Cal.4th 254,79 Cal.Rptr.2d 178 |
| Decision Date | 02 November 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. S054868,S054868 |
| Parties | A, 19 Cal.4th 254, 965 P.2d 696, 26 Media L. Rep. 2505, 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 8122, 98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 11,307 Khalid Iqbal KHAWAR, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. GLOBE INTERNATIONAL, INC., Defendant and Appellant. Ali AHMAD, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. GLOBE INTERNATIONAL, INC., Defendant and Respondent |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court (California) |
Francis C.J. Pizzulli, Santa Monica, for Plaintiff and Appellant and for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Deutsch, Levy & Engel, Paul M. Levy, Chicago, IL, Glassman & Browning, Glassman, Browning & Saltsman, Anthony Michael Glassman, Barbara Tarlow, Lori A. Nielsen, Beverly Hills, Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, Walter R. Allan, San Francisco, Edward P. Davis, Jr., James M. Chadwick, San Jose, Joseph R. Tiffany II, Palo Alto, David S. Winton, Caroline N. Mitchell, San Francisco, and Amy Hogue, Los Angeles, for Defendant and Appellant and for Defendant and Respondent.
William A. Niese, Karlene W. Goller, Debra Foust Bruns, Judith Fanshaw, Susan Holliday, Beth A. Finley, Los Angeles, Sandra Williams, Harold W. Fuson, Jr., La Jolla, Anne H. Egerton, Andrea Hartman, Burbank, George Freeman, Adam Liptak, Ralph Goldberg, Stephen Fuzesi, Jr., New York, NY, Thomas W. Newton, Jane Kirtley, Bernard Zimmerman, San Francisco, Davis, Wright & Tremaine, Kelli L. Sager, Los Angeles, Bruce E.H. Johnson, San Francisco, Debora K. Kristensen, Boise, ID, Karen Fredricksen, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Jonathan Bloom, Rogers & Wells, Richard N. Winfield, New York, NY, Reed, Smith, Shaw & McClay, J. Laurent Scharff, Sacramento, Baker & Hostetler, Bruce W. Sanford, Washington DC, Henry S. Hoberman, New York, NY, Robert Lystad, Washington DC, Steinhart & Falconer, James F. Brelsford, Roger R. Myers and Nicole A. Wong, San Francisco, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant and Defendant and Respondent.
We granted review to decide certain issues concerning the federal Constitution's guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press insofar as they restrict a state's ability to impose tort liability for the publication of defamatory falsehoods. More specifically, we address the definition of a "public figure" for purposes of tort and First Amendment law, the existence in this state of a privilege for "neutral reportage," and the showings required to support awards of compensatory and punitive damages for the republication of a defamatory falsehood.
On these issues, we conclude: (1) A young journalist who was photographed near a nationally prominent politician moments before the politician's assassination, but who was never a suspect in the government's investigation of the assassination, whose views on the assassination were never publicized, and who never sought to influence public discussion about the assassination, was not a public figure in relation to a tabloid newspaper's article reporting a book's false accusation that the journalist assassinated the politician; (2) this state does not recognize a neutral reportage privilege for republication of a libel concerning a private figure (and we need not and do not decide here whether this state recognizes a neutral reportage privilege for republication of a libel concerning a public official or public figure); and (3) the evidence produced at the trial in this case supports the jury's findings of negligence and actual malice, which in turn support the awards of compensatory and punitive damages.
In November 1988, Roundtable Publishing, Inc., (Roundtable) published a book written by Robert Morrow (Morrow) and entitled The Senator Must Die: The Murder of Robert Kennedy (the Morrow book). The Morrow book alleged that the Iranian Shah's secret police (SAVAK), working together with the Mafia, carried out the 1968 assassination of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy (Kennedy) in California and that Kennedy's assassin was not Sirhan Sirhan, who had been convicted of Kennedy's murder (see People v. Sirhan (1972) 7 Cal.3d 710, 102 Cal.Rptr. 385, 497 P.2d 1121), but a man named Ali Ahmand, whom the Morrow book described as a young Pakistani who, on the evening of the Kennedy assassination, wore a gold-colored sweater and carried what appeared to be a camera but was actually the gun with which Ahmand killed Kennedy. The Morrow book contained four photographs of a young man the book identified as Ali Ahmand standing in a group of people around Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly before Kennedy was assassinated.
Globe International, Inc., (Globe) publishes a weekly tabloid newspaper called Globe. Its issue of April 4, 1989, contained an article on page 9 under the headline: Former CIA Agent Claims: IRANIANS KILLED BOBBY KENNEDY FOR THE MAFIA (the Globe article). Another headline, appearing on the front page of the same issue, stated: Iranian secret police killed Bobby Kennedy. The Globe article, written by John Blackburn (a freelance reporter and former Globe staff reporter), gave an abbreviated, uncritical summary of the Morrow book's allegations. The Globe article included a photograph from the Morrow book showing a group of men standing near Kennedy; Globe enlarged the image of these individuals and added an arrow pointing to one of these men and identifying him as the assassin Ali Ahmand.
In August 1989, Khalid Iqbal Khawar (Khawar) brought this action against Globe, Roundtable, and Morrow, alleging that he was the person depicted in the photographs and identified in the Morrow book as Ali Ahmand, and that the book's accusation, repeated in the Globe article, that he had assassinated Kennedy was false and defamatory and had caused him substantial injury. Three months later, Khawar's father, Ali Ahmad (not Ahmand), brought a separate defamation suit against the same defendants and based on the same publications. These two actions were consolidated.
Morrow defaulted, and Roundtable settled with both Khawar and Ahmad before trial. As part of the settlement, Roundtable executed a retraction disavowing "any and all statements, intimations, or references that Khalid Iqbal Khawar or Ali Ahmad were in any way associated with or committed the assassination of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy." A jury trial ensued on the claims against Globe.
The evidence at trial showed that in June 1968, when Kennedy was assassinated, Khawar was a Pakistani citizen and a free-lance photojournalist working on assignment for a Pakistani periodical. At the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Room, he stood on the podium near Kennedy so that a friend could photograph him with Kennedy, and so that he could photograph Kennedy. He was aware that television cameras and the cameras of other journalists were focused on the podium and that his image would be publicized. When Kennedy left the Embassy Room, Khawar did not follow him; Khawar was still in the Embassy Room when Kennedy was shot in the hotel pantry area. Both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Los Angeles Police Department questioned Khawar about the assassination, but neither agency ever regarded him as a suspect.
In April 1989, 21 years later, when the Globe article was published, Khawar was a naturalized United States citizen living with his wife and children in Bakersfield, California, where he owned and operated a farm. His father, Ali Ahmad, had likewise become a naturalized United States citizen and settled in Bakersfield. After Khawar read the Globe article, he became very frightened for his own safety and that of his family. He received accusatory and threatening telephone calls about the article from as far away as Thailand, he and his children received death threats, and his home and his son's car were vandalized. A Bakersfield television station interviewed Khawar about the Globe article.
The trial court granted Globe's motion for nonsuit as to Ahmad on the ground that the allegedly defamatory statements in the Globe article were not "of and concerning" Ahmad. As to Khawar, the jury returned, among others, these special verdicts: (1) the Globe article contained statements about Khawar that were false and defamatory; (2) Globe published the article negligently and with malice or oppression; (3) with respect to Kennedy's assassination, Khawar was a private rather than a public figure; and (4) the Globe article was a neutral and accurate report of the Morrow book. The parties had previously agreed that the jury's findings on the last two issues would be advisory only. The jury awarded Khawar $100,000 for injury to his reputation, $400,000 for emotional distress, $175,000 in presumed damages, and, after a separate punitive damages phase, $500,000 in punitive damages.
After the return of these special verdicts, the trial court reviewed those that were deemed advisory and determined as a matter of law that (1) the Globe article was not an accurate and neutral report of the statements and charges made in the Morrow book (thus disagreeing with and rejecting the jury's advisory special verdict); and (2) with respect to the events in question, Khawar was a private and not a public figure (thus agreeing with and adopting the jury's advisory special verdict). The trial court's finding that the Globe article was not an accurate and neutral report of the Morrow book was apparently based on the court's subsidiary finding that although Khawar could be identified from the photograph of him that appeared in the Globe article, which included an arrow pointing directly at Khawar, it was impossible to identify Khawar from the smaller, darker, and less distinct image of him, without an arrow, that appeared in the Morrow book. Based upon its findings that Khawar was not named in and could not be identified from the photographs in the Morrow book, the trial court vacated Morrow's default and ultimately entered judgment in his favor. The court...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Balla v. Hall
...newspaper failed to interview key witness who might have confirmed statement was false]; Khawar v. Globe Internat., Inc. (1998) 19 Cal.4th 254, 276, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 178, 965 P.2d 696 [accord]; Antonovich v. Superior Court (1991) 234 Cal.App.3d 1041, 1048-1051, 285 Cal.Rptr. 863 [actual malic......
-
ZL Techs., Inc. v. Doe
...v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc. (1985) 472 U.S. 749, 756, 105 S.Ct. 2939, 86 L.Ed.2d 593 ; see also Khawar v. Globe Internat., Inc. (1998) 19 Cal.4th 254, 273-275, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 178, 965 P.2d 696.) Evidence of falsity will be relevant to any determination of malice (see, e.g., Philadelphia New......
-
In re Smith
...libel is particularly difficult to state, and the law is unsettled. See, e.g., CAL. CIVIL CODE § 45; Khawar v. Globe Int'l, Inc., 19 Cal.4th 254, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 178, 965 P.2d 696 (1998); Smith v. Maldonado, 72 Cal.App.4th 637, 645, 85 Cal.Rptr.2d 397, 402 (1st Dist.Ct.App.1999); 5 WITKIN, S......
-
Everest Properties II v. Prometheus Development Co., Inc., A114305 (Cal. App. 9/27/2007)
...district court (No. C 06-02751-WHA). Both motions are denied for lack of relevance and untimeliness. (See Khawar v. Globe Internat., Inc. (1998) 19 Cal.4th 254, 273, fn. 5; Simmons v. Southern Pac. Transportation Co. (1976) 62 Cal.App.3d 341, 366-367.) Those documents were also not consider......
-
Defamation and privacy
...on circumstantial evidence, including evidence of motive and failure to adhere to professional standards. Khawar v. Globe Int’l, Inc . 19 Cal. 4th 254, (1998). A finding of actual malice based on the republication of a third party’s defamatory falsehoods may be upheld where there are obviou......