Beatty v. Ellings

• Decision Date: 12 December 1969
• Docket Number: No. 41315,41315
• Parties: Martin A. BEATTY, Appellant, v. Randolph K. ELLINGS et al., Respondents.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 12

173 N.W.2d 12

285 Minn. 293

Martin A. BEATTY, Appellant, v. Randolph K. ELLINGS et al., Respondents.

No. 41315.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Dec. 12, 1969.

Syllabus by the Court

1--2. The granting of summary judgment of dismissal against plaintiff, in action against numerous defendants alleging a conspiracy to defame and degrade him and to deny him his civil rights, is affirmed.

3. The denial of summary judgment to three individual defendants alleged to have uttered isolated slanders against plaintiff, a public figure, in the course of public debate about a public issue, is accorded discretionary review and reversed.

Martin A. Beatty, Winona, Ben R. Toensing, Hopkins, for appellant.

Streater, Murphy & Brosnahan, C. Stanley McMahon, Winona, for respondents.

Heard before KNUTSON, C.J., and NELSON, SHERAN, PETERSON, and FRANK T. GALLAGHER, JJ.

OPINION

PETERSON, Justice.

The issues in this appeal arise out of an action by plaintiff, Martin A. Beatty, pleading separable causes of action against numerous defendants, public bodies and public officials for the most part, tied together by an allegation that they maliciously conspired to defame him and deny his civil rights. The trial court granted summary judgment of dismissal for the defendants except only as to isolated claims against three individuals. Plaintiff has appealed of right from the summary judgment against him, and the three remaining defendants have petitioned for discretionary review of the judgment with respect to them.

This litigation is an outgrowth of a longstanding and vigorous public controversy over urban renewal and redevelopment in Winona, Minnesota. Defendants, either as public officials or interested private persons, have been proponents of urban renewal. Plaintiff, a resident of Winona, has been an active opponent of these public programs, perhaps in part because he is, as his complaint discloses, the owner of an affected building. The present litigation, considered in the context of that controversy, ¹ compels a conclusion that the claims of plaintiff are without substantial merit and, except as to certain claims not dismissed by the trial court, do not warrant extended discussion.

1. Plaintiff's basic claim of a conspiracy among these numerous defendants is, as the trial court found, clearly without substance. The voluminous pretrial discovery proceedings evince the fullest opportunity for plaintiff to uncover the existence of a conspiracy. All that appears, however, is the obvious fact that defendants shared a common interest in urban renewal and were not favorably disposed to plaintiff's activities in opposition. A natural community of interest among participating proponents in a public debate, including agreement among public officials for the adoption of a particular program, forms no rational basis for any inference that an affront by any of them to their common opponent occurred pursuant to a conspiracy to degrade him or deny him his civil rights.

2. Plaintiff's claim that he was denied his civil rights, alleged at length in the prolix pleadings, is generally an assault upon the 'illegal and improper' proceedings of the city council and public agencies interested in urban renewal. The trial court carefully considered these allegations, together with the most extensive files, depositions, and exhibits relating to them. It concluded that each of these claims was without substance as a matter of fact and as a matter of law. We agree and think no useful purpose could be served by a reiteration of the trial court's comprehensive opinion.

3. Plaintiff makes several claims against different defendants for defamation arising out of meetings of various public bodies considering the subject of urban renewal. Two of these, alleged as libel, ² were dismissd by the trial court and we affirm without detailed discussion. Three of these, alleged as slanders, were not dismissed by the trial court:

(a) At a meeting of the Winona Planning Commission on December 23, 1965, defendant Jerry Papenfuss, one of the commissioners, became engaged in heated argument with the plaintiff as the result of plaintiff's accusations against the defendant Randolph K. Ellings, then mayor of Winona. Papenfuss referred to plaintiff three times as a 'son-of-a-bitch,' prefaced by certain other adjectives.

(b) At a meeting of the city council on June 15, 1964, defendant Ellings allegedly responded to the unfounded accusation of plaintiff that the council had conducted secret meetings with these words: 'You are a liar.' And, at a meeting on September 8, 1964, again as part of a heated exchange, Ellings suggested to plaintiff that they could settle their differences in the adjoining alley, which plaintiff took to mean that the debate would be resolved by fisticuffs. The trial court, in denying Ellings' motion for summary judgment, referred only to the second incident, terming it 'a slanderous, or possibly a threatened, assault.' ³

(c) The third alleged slander involves statements made to plaintiff by defendant Joseph E. Krier, vice chairman of the Winona Housing and Redevelopment Authority, at its meeting on July 21, 1964. This meeting was held in a room at the Winona National and Savings Bank, of which Krier was a vice president. Plaintiff, in a letter to Arthur A. Gallien, executive director of the authority, had protested the practice of meeting at that time and place, urging that meetings be held in the municipal building and at an hour more convenient to those wishing to attend. Plaintiff did attend the meeting, and at that time and place, as alleged in the complaint, Krier spoke these words to plaintiff in the presence of Gallien:

'What are you doing here?'

'Why aren't you at your office? You must not have any law business that you can spend all of your time attending meetings.'

'You are hurting yourself.'

'You have lost a great many friends.'

'You are fighting a lost cause and you should have sense enough to know it.'

'Do you know what you are doing?'

'I think you ought to see a psychiatrist.' ⁴ Defendant Krier added these words: 'Who's behind this? Does your wife put you up to this?' Plaintiff pleads as the innuendo of these latter words 'that plaintiff was dominated by his wife.' We think the important issue of defamation relates only to the suggested need for psychiatric consultation. Our disposition of that issue, in any event, equally disposes of any suggestion that this aggressive plaintiff was wife-dominated.

Plaintiff, notwithstanding his allegations that the statements of defendant Krier were inherently defamatory, republished the event himself. He visited the office of E. L. King, chairman of the bank's board, the same day and reported 'what had gone on and how (he) had been slandered,' and on July 22 he sent King a letter to 'serve as a memo of my conversation of yesterday afternoon with you at your office.' ⁵ On November 14, 1964, plaintiff wrote a similar letter to the members of the city council and the members of the housing and redevelopment authority. He also sent copies of the letter to the 450 resident members of the Winona Chamber of Commerce. ⁶ If the letter was not a total reiteration of the allegedly slanderous statements, it was otherwise remarkable for its absence of reference to them. ⁷

We have determined to exercise discretionary review in this case even though appellate review of orders denying motions for summary judgment will be granted only in most unusual situations. See, Rule 105.01, Rules of Civil Appellate Procedure. The surviving claims against these three individual defendants are but the tag ends of plaintiff's actions against the numerous other defendants rather similarly situated. The issues arise out of the same public controversy and involve utterances of public officials in the course of public meetings relating to that controversy. The trial of these isolated claims might well necessitate long and expensive trial proceedings, an unwarranted imposition upon both litigants and the public in view of our conclusion that plaintiff's claims are as a matter of law without substantial merit. ⁸ We are convinced that the interest of justice will best be served by dismissal of the entire litigation and remanding plaintiff to his original forum of public debate.

We hold that the words spoken by the three defendants, even assuming that they were defamatory, are not actionable. Not all abusive or vulgar epithets, we observe in passing, are inherently defamatory. Calling a man a 'son-of-a-bitch,' unworthy as it is in public debate, could not reasonably be construed as an actual reference to his ancestry or even as to his general character. Calling a man a 'liar' may in many situations reflect upon a man's character, but it is not necessarily so; it is at least no different than labeling an unfounded accusation as a 'lie.' An invitation to an alley fight would not in any setting constitute slander. To suggest that a man should seek psychiatric advice, spoken in the context of his activities in connection with an urban renewal controversy, does not necessarily connote an accusation by the speaker that he is insane. ⁹ We need not decide, however, whether these words were nondefamatory as a matter of law, because they are, for other and more basic reasons, not actionable.

First, slander is not actionable without allegation and proof of damage unless the defamatory words are actionable per se. Defamatory words spoken concerning a professional man are not actionable per se unless spoken with direct reference to his professional activity. ¹⁰ Plaintiff did allege that Ellings' reference to him as a liar and Krier's reference to him as needing psychiatric consultation were damaging to him 'both professionally and otherwise'; but as to all other spoken words he alleged only that they were damaging to his 'reputation.' The statements of Ellings and Krier were no more directed to plaintiff's professional...