Meador v. New Times, Inc., 93-15213
| Decision Date | 12 August 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 93-15213,93-15213 |
| Citation | 36 F.3d 1103 |
| Parties | NOTICE: Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3 provides that dispositions other than opinions or orders designated for publication are not precedential and should not be cited except when relevant under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. Gordon Dale MEADOR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NEW TIMES, INC., Terese Greene; Michael Lacey, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Before: FLETCHER, HALL and WIGGINS, Circuit Judges
Gordon Dale Meador appeals pro se the district court's order denying his motion for a preliminary injunction. Meador alleged that the New Times Newspaper of Phoenix, Arizona ("New Times") and one of its writers committed the state law torts of defamation and false light invasion of privacy against him when they published an article linking him to the deaths of two young boys. He sought a preliminary injunction restraining New Times from publishing his name in the future. We have jurisdiction and we affirm.
Meador currently is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole in a California state prison for an unrelated crime. In January 1991, New Times published an article by Terry Greene entitled "The Eternal Fire." The article described the story of two young boys who died in a fire in a shack near their homes in Arizona on April 3, 1974. Originally, the deaths were determined to be accidental and much of the evidence regarding the deaths was lost or destroyed. The article explains that in 1978, Meador contacted the Mohave County Sheriff's Office and claimed to know who killed the children. At an interview with deputies from the Sheriff's Office, Meador accused his "friend" Marc Stubblefield and a man named Mark Waldy of killing the two boys by pouring gasoline inside the shack, lighting a match, and locking the two boys inside. According to the article, the County Sheriff's Office subsequently reopened the investigation and labeled the deaths as homicides. The article states that "[t]he chief suspects in the unresolved murders are ... prisoners' Dale Gordon Meador and Mark Stubblefield ... according to sheriff's officials." SER 8 at 24. The article connected Meador with events surrounding the deaths, highlighted Meador's involvement in other criminal activities, and explained that the case is unlikely to be resolved because most of the evidence has been destroyed or lost. It also quotes from several letters that Meador wrote to Greene in response to letters she sent him in prison, and notes that Meador denies that he had any part in the killings. 1
Meador asserts that, following publication of the article, he was assaulted on three separate occasions by inmates who thought he was a child killer. He contends that as a result of these attacks he has suffered physical and psychiatric injuries, and several members of his family have disowned him. Meador alleges that he has been assaulted five additional times since the district court denied his motion for a preliminary injunction.
In February 1992, Meador wrote to New Times, Inc., the publisher of the New Times Newspaper, demanding retraction of the article. The newspaper did not publish a retraction.
In June 1992, Meador filed an action in pro per against appellees New Times, Inc., and Greene in the Northern District of California. On June 11, 1992, Meador filed a Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and/or Preliminary Injunction against appellees, in which he requested that appellees be enjoined from printing his name in the New Times Newspaper "in any manner which would cause further assaults on his person...."
The federal district court in California liberally construed the complaint to find that Meador stated state law claims including invasion of the right to privacy, defamation, and assault and battery. The court concluded that venue was improper in California and transferred the case sua sponte to the District of Arizona.
On September 8, 1992, the district court in Arizona denied Meador's request for a temporary restraining order. On January 7, 1992, the district court denied Meador's motion for a preliminary injunction in a brief order, which concludes that Meador failed to satisfy the criteria necessary to obtain such relief. Meador's appeal is timely.
The district court's denial of a motion for preliminary injunction is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Hunt v. National Broadcasting Co., 872 F.2d 289, 292 (9th Cir.1989). Reversal is appropriate if the district court applies an erroneous legal standard, rests its decision on clearly erroneous findings of fact, or otherwise abuses its discretion. Id.
"A party seeking a preliminary injunction must demonstrate either a combination of probable success on the merits and the possibility of irreparable injury, or that serious questions are raised and the balance of hardships tips in its favor." Id. at 293; United States v. Odessa Union Warehouse Co-op, 833 F.2d 172, 174 (9th Cir.1987). " 'These two formulations represent two points on a sliding scale in which the required degree of irreparable harm increases as the probability of success decreases.' " Hunt, 872 F.2d at 293 (quoting Odessa Union, 833 F.2d at 174).
Accordingly, although a showing that plaintiff will be more severely prejudiced by a denial of the injunction than defendant would be by its grant does not remove the need to show some probability of winning on the merits, it does lower the standard that must be met. Conversely, if there is only slight evidence that plaintiff will be injured in the absence of interlocutory relief, the showing that he is likely to prevail on the merits is particularly important.
11 Charles A. Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure Sec. 2948, at 455 (1973).
Application of this standard convinces us that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Meador's motion for a preliminary injunction because Meador has failed to establish that the balance of hardships weighs in his favor, and because he has failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits.
Meador contends that he will suffer significant future injury if no injunction is issued. Although the record indicates that Meador has suffered physical abuse while incarcerated, and he contends that most of it has occurred as a result of publication of "The Eternal Fire," the balance of hardships favors the district court's decision to deny the preliminary injunction. 2 On the one hand, not only would the injunction constitute a prior restraint, but on the other, its potential for relief to Meador is at best highly unlikely.
"[P]rior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights" and are presumptively unconstitutional. Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 559 (1976); Hunt, 872 F.2d at 293; Goldblum v. National Broadcasting Corp., 584 F.2d 904, 907 (9th Cir.1978). "It is a fundamental principle of the first amendment that the press may not be required to justify or defend what it prints or says until after the expression has taken place." Goldblum, 584 F.2d at 907. Those seeking to obtain a prior restraint on publications carry a heavy burden of justifying the need to impose the restraint. Nebraska Press, 427 U.S. at 568; New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 714 (1971) ().
Our circuit has twice rejected motions to impose prior restraints on the press in cases similar to this one where the plaintiff alleged that future publication would constitute false light invasion of privacy and would injure the plaintiff. See Rifkin v. Esquire Pub., Inc., 7 Media L.Rep. (BNA) 1231, 1232 (9th Cir.1981); Goldblum, 584 F.2d at 905-07. In Goldblum, a prisoner and former executive officer of the Equity Funding Corporation sought to restrain the broadcast of "Billion Dollar Bubble," a docudrama based on events surrounding a securities and insurance fraud that caused the insolvency of Equity Funding. Goldblum alleged that the representations would be inaccurate, and would jeopardize his release on parole, his right to a fair trial in a pending civil matter, and his fair trial right in any potential future criminal action. Goldblum, 584 F.2d at 905. We refused to permit judicial review of the film prior to broadcast--the remedy imposed by the district court--noting that the possibility of inflaming parole officers or of influencing a purely speculative criminal prosecution did not justify a prior restraint. Id. at 906-07.
Similarly, in Rifkin v. Esquire, a federal prisoner sought to enjoin publication of an issue of Esquire on the grounds that an article within it portrayed him in a false light and would jeopardize his chances of obtaining parole. 7 Media L.Rep. (BNA) at 1232. We denied Rifkin's motion, ruling that the speculative possibility of angering prison authorities and thus injuring the prisoner did not justify a prior restraint. Id.
Although the likelihood of further assaults in prison is arguably greater in this case than the potential harms alleged in either Goldblum or Rifkin, the probable unconstitutionality of an injunction supports the district court's denial of Meador's motion. In short, irreparable harm a fortiori results from the prior restraint.
An additional factor weighing against Meador is the fact that the story has already been published; it is unlikely that an injunction prohibiting future publications would effectively protect Meador from future assaults. See Hunt, 872 F.2d at 296 (...
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