Arpaio v. Cottle
| Decision Date | 09 August 2019 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 18-cv-02387 (APM) |
| Citation | 404 F.Supp.3d 80 |
| Parties | Joseph Michael ARPAIO, Plaintiff, v. Michelle COTTLE, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Larry E. Klayman, Klayman Law Group, P.A., Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.
Chad R. Bowman, Jay Ward Brown, Dana R. Green, Ballard Spahr LLP, Washington, DC, for Defendants.
This case arises out of the publication of an article in The New York Times about Plaintiff Joseph Arpaio. Plaintiff filed this action against Defendants The New York Times Company and the article's author, Michelle Cottle, alleging that the article's false content caused him significant reputational and financial harm. Plaintiff advances claims for defamation, tortious interference with prospective business relations, and false light invasion of privacy. Defendants now move to dismiss the Complaint for failure to state a claim and, separately, for dismissal under the District of Columbia Anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation ("Anti-SLAPP") Act.
For the reasons outlined below, the court grants Defendants' Motion to Dismiss for failure to state a claim and denies Defendants' Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to the D.C. Anti-SLAPP Act.
Plaintiff Joseph Arpaio served as Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, for almost 25 years before running for Arizona's United States Senate seat in 2018. Compl., ECF No. 1 [hereinafter Compl.], ¶¶ 9–10. Plaintiff was defeated in the Republican primary. On August 29, 2018, the day after the primary election, Defendant The New York Times published an article written by Defendant Michelle Cottle titled, "Well, at least Sheriff Joe Isn't Going to Congress—Arpaio's Loss in Arizona's Senate Republican Primary is a Fitting End to the Public Life of a Truly Sadistic Man." Compl., Ex. 1 [hereinafter Article], at 1. Published in the Opinions section of the paper, the Article details Arpaio's actions, statements, and viewpoints during his 25-year tenure as Sheriff. See id.
The Article sarcastically begins by "mark[ing] the loss of a fierce and tireless public servant." Id. Cottle describes Plaintiff as someone "who so robustly devoted himself to terrorizing immigrants that he was eventually convicted of contempt of court and would have lived out his twilight years with a well-deserved criminal record if President Trump ... had not granted him a pardon." Id. She calls Plaintiff's election loss "a fitting end to the public life of a true American villain." Id.
The Article then follows with perhaps its most excoriating paragraph. Cottle says about Plaintiff:
As "America's toughest sheriff," as Mr. Arpaio liked to call himself, prepares to ride off into the sunset, it bears recalling that he was so much more than a run-of-the-mill immigrant basher. His 24-year reign of terror was medieval in its brutality. In addition to conducting racial profiling on a mass scale and terrorizing immigrant neighborhoods with gratuitous raids and traffic stops and detentions, he oversaw a jail where mistreatment of inmates was the stuff of legend. Abuses ranged from the humiliating to the lethal. He brought back chain gangs. He forced prisoners to wear pink underwear. He set up an outdoor "tent city," which he once referred to as a "concentration camp," to hold the overflow of prisoners. Inmates were beaten, fed rancid food, denied medical care (this included pregnant women) and, in at least one case, left battered on the floor to die.
The Article then recounts features of Plaintiff's time as Sheriff of Maricopa County. It states that "many prisoners died in Mr. Arpaio's jail—at an alarming clip," noting that the "number of inmates who hanged themselves in his facilities was far higher than in jails elsewhere in the country." Id. at 2. It continues that his department "failed to properly investigate, or in some cases to investigate at all, more than 400 sex-crime cases, including those involving the rape of young children." Id. Elsewhere, the Article says that, "[i]t was no secret that Mr. Arpaio's methods often crossed the line into the not-so-legal," and references Plaintiff's "practice of stopping and detaining people on no other grounds than suspecting them of being undocumented immigrants." Id. The Article adds that Plaintiff "was found guilty of criminal contempt of court for blatantly thumbing his nose at the law." Id.
The Article concludes by stating: Id. at 3.
Plaintiff filed this action against Defendants on October 16, 2018, alleging defamation per se, tortious interference with prospective business relations, and false light invasion of privacy. See Compl. In his Complaint, Plaintiff contends that the allegedly false and defamatory statements in the Article, which was "widely published in this judicial district, nationally and internationally," have harmed his reputation and political career and caused him financial damage. Id. ¶¶ 15, 18–21, 25. Plaintiff complains specifically that his reputation "with the Republican establishment," "chances and prospects of election to the U.S. Senate in 2020," and "reputation ... in the law enforcement community" have all been harmed by the Article. Id. ¶¶ 19–21.
On January 4, 2019, Defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See Defs.' Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 8 [hereinafter Defs.' Mot.]. Defendants argue that the Article "merely summarized" the abundantly available public record pertaining to Plaintiff's long tenure as Sheriff of Maricopa County, and that the Article's contents "constitute[ ] core political speech protected by the First Amendment." Defs.' Mot. at 1. Defendants further claim that because Plaintiff is a "public figure," he must meet a higher standard to make out a claim for defamation, which, they contend, he cannot do because he fails to allege facts that plausibly establish that the challenged statements were false or were published with the requisite intent of actual malice. Id. at 29.
Defendants also separately filed a "Special Motion to Dismiss" pursuant to the District of Columbia Anti-SLAPP Act, D.C. Code § 16-5502(a). See Defs.' Special Mot. to Dismiss Pursuant to the D.C. Anti-SLAPP Act, ECF No. 9 [hereinafter Defs.' Special Mot.], at 1. Defendants contend that the Complaint must be dismissed because the Article constitutes "an act in furtherance of the right of advocacy on issues of public interest," and Plaintiff is unable to demonstrate that he is "likely to succeed on the merits" of his three claims. Id. at 7 (quoting D.C. Code § 16-5502(a) ).
A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) tests the legal sufficiency of a complaint. See Sickle v. Torres Advanced Enter. Sols., LLC , 884 F.3d 338, 344 (D.C. Cir. 2018). "To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter ... to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Id. at 344–45 (alteration in original) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) ). A claim is plausible on its face "when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937.
When evaluating a motion under Rule 12(b)(6), the court must "accept the plaintiff's factual allegations as true," Sickle , 884 F.3d at 345, and "construe the complaint in favor of the plaintiff, who must be granted the benefit of all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged," Hettinga v. United States , 677 F.3d 471, 476 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). The court need not accept as true, however, "a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation." Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ). Accordingly, "[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice." Id.
In determining whether a complaint fails to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6), a court "may consider only the facts alleged in the complaint, any documents either attached to or incorporated in the complaint and matters of which [the court] may take judicial notice." Trudeau v. Fed. Trade Comm'n , 456 F.3d 178, 183 (D.C. Cir. 2006). "A district court may consider documents attached to a motion to dismiss, without converting the motion into a motion for summary judgment, if those documents' authenticity is not disputed, they were referenced in the complaint, and they are ‘integral’ to one or more of the plaintiff's claims." See Scott v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. , 296 F. Supp. 3d 98, 105 (D.D.C. 2017) (citing Kaempe v. Myers , 367 F.3d 958, 965 (D.C. Cir. 2004) ).
The court begins with Plaintiff's defamation claim. To state a claim for defamation under District of Columbia law, a plaintiff must allege sufficient facts to establish: "(1) that the defendant made a false and defamatory statement concerning the plaintiff; (2) that the defendant published the statement without privilege to a third party; (3) that the defendant's fault in publishing the statement amounted to at least negligence; and (4) either that the statement was actionable as a matter of law irrespective of special harm or that its publication caused the plaintiff special harm." Solers, Inc. v. Doe , 977 A.2d 941, 948 (D.C. 2009). Of the four elements, Defendants argue primarily as to one: that Plaintiff fails to plead facts that support the requisite malicious intent. The court agrees.
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...has failed to adequately plead actual malice. That failure alone warrants granting the Post's motion to dismiss. See Arpaio v. Cottle, 404 F.Supp.3d 80, 86 (D.D.C. 2019) (dismissing defamation claim because “Plaintiff's Complaint does not plead any facts to support the key element of actual......