Arizona Biochemical Company v. Hearst Corporation

• Decision Date: 23 July 1969
• Docket Number: No. 68 Civ. 4549,68 Civ. 4522.,68 Civ. 4549
• Citation: 302 F. Supp. 412
• Parties: ARIZONA BIOCHEMICAL COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. The HEARST CORPORATION, Defendant. ARIZONA BIOCHEMICAL COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. METROMEDIA, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

302 F. Supp. 412

ARIZONA BIOCHEMICAL COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. The HEARST CORPORATION, Defendant.

ARIZONA BIOCHEMICAL COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. METROMEDIA, INC., Defendant.

Nos. 68 Civ. 4549, 68 Civ. 4522.

United States District Court S. D. New York.

July 23, 1969.

Sacks & Rubin, New York City, for plaintiff.

Coudert Bros., New York City, by Carleton G. Eldridge, Jr., New York City, of counsel, for defendants.

OPINION

EDELSTEIN, District Judge.

The defendants in these separate actions for libel have both moved under Rule 12(b) (6) F.R.Civ.P. to dismiss the complaints filed against them on the grounds that the plaintiff has failed to allege sufficiently both actual malice and damages as required by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964). As a predicate to this argument, defendants maintain that New York Times governs this case.

The plaintiff, Arizona Biochemical Company, is in the business of collecting and disposing of garbage, and, at the time of the publication of the alleged libels, held contracts for garbage disposal awarded by several municipalities in the area of Albany, New York. The Hearst Corporation (hereinafter Hearst) is the owner and publisher of an Albany newspaper named THE TIMES UNION. Plaintiff alleges in its complaint against Hearst that the latter published in THE TIMES UNION several libelous articles concerning plaintiff in which articles plaintiff was charged with having associations with the "Mafia," with paying kickbacks to obtain local garbage disposal contracts, with gaining control over the garbage collection and disposal business in the area by employing threats and physical force and violence against its competitors, with employing tactics of deceit and bad faith in acquiring a local company, with having "a long history of financial difficulties traceable in eleven states," and with acting secretly in concert with public officials of Troy to obtain a contract from that city without revealing this to the public. Metromedia, Inc., (hereinafter Metromedia) is the operator of the New York television station designated WNEW, Channel 5. In its complaint against Metromedia plaintiff alleges that this defendant, during one of its news broadcasts, repeated most of the charges against plaintiff made previously by Hearst and added, among other new charges, that plaintiff was the subject of investigation by various public agencies.

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, was an action brought by an elected official of the City of Montgomery, Alabama, for a libelous advertisement which allegedly reflected upon his official conduct as supervisor of the local police department. The advertisement in question involved the civil rights movement then being led in the South by Martin Luther King. The primary holding of the case was that the guaranties of the First Amendment regarding freedom of speech required a rule that a public official cannot recover damages "for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with `actual malice' — that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not."

In succeeding cases the Supreme Court has expanded the scope of this rule's protection by including within its ambit actions by public figures suing for libel, Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 87 S.Ct. 1975, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967), and actions for invasion of privacy based on false statements where matters of public concern were at issue, Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374, 87 S.Ct. 534, 17 L.Ed.2d 456 (1967). In the cases at bar the defendants contend that the New York Times rule governs here because plaintiff's business is a subject of substantial public interest and because plaintiff, under the germane Supreme Court decisions, is a public figure. The plaintiff responds by arguing that it is not a public figure and that an allegation of public interest is not, per se, sufficient reason to warrant the application of the New York Times rule to a libel action. The threshold question, therefore, is whether this case is governed by the New York Times ruling. This court holds that it is.

The ambit of the Supreme Court's ruling was not finally delineated by the New York Times opinion itself.¹ The Court, rather, has proceeded on a case by case basis in determining to what new categories of cases — other than those involving civil actions for defamation brought by public officials — its ruling is to apply. For example, in Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64, 85 S.Ct. 209, 13 L.Ed.2d 125 (1964), the New York Times holding was applied to an action brought for criminal libel. Next in Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U.S. 75, 86 S. Ct. 669, 15 L.Ed.2d 597 (1966), the Court included within its term "public official" a former supervisor of a county recreation area. Then in Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, and Associated Press v. Walker, 388 U.S. 130, 87 S.Ct. 1975, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967), the Court held that its constitutional standard was applicable to statements made about public figures as well as to expressions concerning public officials.²

In any particular context "the scope of the New York Times privilege is to be determined by reference to the functions it serves." Rosenblatt v. Baer, supra, 383 U.S. at 85, n. 10, 86 S.Ct., at 675. The Supreme Court has made it clear in all of the opinions just noted, and in others, that the rationale underlying these decisions is the vital need to protect the guaranties of free expression found in the First Amendment. The pith of the matter is the concept that in our constitutional system of self-government, the people have reserved to themselves the power to oversee the functioning of their society. Therefore, "freedom of discussion, if it would fulfill its historic function in this nation, must embrace all issues about which information is needed or appropriate to enable the members of society to cope with the exigencies of their period." Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 102, 60 S.Ct. 736, 744, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940). This is what the Supreme Court alluded to in New York Times when it adverted to our "* * * profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open * * *." 376 U.S. at 270, 84 S.Ct., at 721.

Viewed in this light, the privilege accorded by New York Times is designed "* * * to insure the ascertainment and publication of the truth about public affairs." St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U.S. 727, 732, 88 S.Ct. 1323, 1326, 20 L.Ed.2d 262 (1968). If this be so the privilege should be defined in broader terms than public official or public figure.

In modern democratic society the public judgment makes itself felt on a great variety of subjects in a great variety of ways, official and unofficial. If decision on these matters is to be adequately informed every effort ought to be made to free the channels of communication with respect to these subjects. It is therefore the function of the first amendment to protect the freedom of speech and press on all those matters as to which there is some element of public participation. At least on those issues where the public judgment can make itself felt through official or unofficial communication it can be said that the matter is one of proper public concern. The determination of "matters of public concern" should thus become the key to the application of the privilege recognized in the Times decision. Pedrick, Freedom of the Press and the Law of Libel: The Modern Revised Translation, 49 Cornell L.Q. 581, 592 (1964). Accord, Comment, The Limits of Political Speech: New York Times v. Sullivan Revisited, 14 U.C.L. A.L.Rev. 631 (1967). See Brennan, The Supreme Court and the Meiklejohn Interpretation of the First Amendment, 79 Harv.L.Rev. 1 (1965). Cf. Time, Inc. v. Hill, supra.

The conclusion reached here — that matters of public concern should become the key to the application of the New York Times rule — has support in case law. In United Medical Laboratories, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 404 F.2d 706 (9th Cir.1968), the plaintiff, a mail order clinical testing laboratory, complained of a series of national television broadcasts, radio broadcasts and press releases published by defendant which reported on the inaccuracies in the results often given by some of these laboratories and commented on the significance of the errors as a health hazard. The plaintiff, although not specifically named in any of the defendant's publications, being one of the largest mail order laboratories in the country, claimed that it was defamed by the intended implications of the reports as they related to mail order laboratories in general. On appeal from the grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant by the court below, the Court of Appeals held, inter alia, that the New York Times rule governed this action because the publications involved, directed as they were to professional practices and conditions in the field of health, concerned a matter of "inherent public concern." The United Medical Laboratories case was expressly followed in Bon Air Hotel, Inc. v. Times, Inc., 295 F.Supp. 704 (S.D.Ga.1969), in which the New York Times rule was applied to a case concerning a magazine article critical of a hotel that catered to followers of the annual golf event, the Masters Tournament. Also, in All Diet Foods Distributors, Inc. v. Time, Inc., 56 Misc.2d 821, 290 N.Y.S.2d 445 (Sup.Ct. 1967), the rule was applied to a case concerning a magazine article relating to alleged frauds perpetrated in the marketing of foods favored by faddists. Accord, Altoona Clay Products, Inc. v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 286 F.Supp. 899, 913 (W.D.Pa.1968) (credit report). Cf. Pauling v. News Syndicate Company, 335 F.2d 659, 671 (2d Cir.1964) (editorial relating to a pacifist).

Although not a libel case, note should be taken of Pickering v. Board of...