Boone v. Sunbelt Newspapers, Inc.

• Decision Date: 19 November 2001
• Docket Number: No. 3410.,3410.
• Parties: Marvin BOONE, Appellant, v. SUNBELT NEWSPAPERS, INC., d/b/a The Times and Democrat, Respondent.
• Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals

347 S.C. 571

556 S.E.2d 732

Marvin BOONE, Appellant, v. SUNBELT NEWSPAPERS, INC., d/b/a The Times and Democrat, Respondent.

No. 3410.

Court of Appeals of South Carolina.

Heard November 6, 2001.

Decided November 19, 2001.

Jeffrey S. Holcombe and Clyde C. Dean, Jr., both of Dean Law Firm, of Orangeburg, for appellant.

Jay Bender, of Baker, Ravenel & Bender, of Columbia, for respondent.

ANDERSON, J.

This is a defamation action. Marvin Boone, a law enforcement officer, sued Sunbelt Newspapers, Inc., d/b/a The Times and Democrat ("Sunbelt"), alleging it published a newspaper article that contained false, misleading, and defamatory statements made about him by a local citizen. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Sunbelt, finding the article could not be understood as making false statements with a defamatory meaning about Boone and, in the alternative, the statements were privileged. Boone appeals. We affirm.

FACTS/PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On July 4, 1988, 67-year-old Clyde Myers, a resident of Branchville, drove a truck loaded with drums containing 500 gallons of gasoline through the doors of the Orangeburg-Calhoun Law Enforcement Complex ("LEC"), flooded the floor with gasoline, ignited it, and then engaged in a twentyminute gun battle that wounded four officers. The LEC was nearly destroyed in the attack. Myers had purchased a bulletproof vest, steel helmet, and gas mask in preparation for the incident.¹ Charges against Myers were nolle prossed in May 1989 when he was declared unable to assist in his own defense. In July 1997, Myers, then 76-years-old, was reindicted for the attack by the Orangeburg County grand jury.

This litigation arises out of Sunbelt's publication of an article in the August 3, 1997, edition of its newspaper, The Times and Democrat, in which Sunbelt employees interviewed Myers and published his account of the events that precipitated the attack and explanation for attempting to burn down the LEC.² The publication coincided with the re-indictment of Myers and was headlined on page 1A as follows:

The headline on the jump page (at page 10A) proclaimed:

Myers' hate aimed at one deputy but another deputy says he made arrest

The article stated, "For nine years, Clyde Burdell Myers, 76, has been mum about why it happened. On Thursday, he told his story to The Times and Democrat."

Myers' account of the events described a dispute in 1988 with the Orangeburg County Council over a road adjoining his property and Myers' belief that he had been treated improperly when arrested for malicious injury to county property in connection with the road dispute. Myers stated his attack on the LEC was in retaliation for this arrest, and that he was "standing up for [his] civil rights." The article declared:

Ironically, the one man Myers continues to hate to this day for hurting him during that arrest isn't even the man who arrested him.

(emphasis added).

According to Myers, when County Council did not respond to a 10 day deadline he had imposed for a response to his inquiry about who owned a local road, Myers proceeded on the morning of the 10th day to plow up half the road adjacent to his property and place barricades on each end of the road. Myers then drove to a local store to purchase "No Trespassing" signs. Upon his return, he encountered two Orangeburg County sheriff's deputies on the highway. Myers got out of his vehicle, took some tacks and a claw hammer, and began placing the signs on the barricades. The article stated:

He claims it was then-Deputy Marvin Boone who told him he had an arrest warrant for him for damaging the county roadway.

Myers asserted Boone placed the handcuffs too tightly on his left wrist and repeatedly "jerked down" on the handcuffs, injuring his hand. The article explained Myers' apparent mistaken identification of Boone as the arresting officer:

Arrest sparked hatred for wrong officer

Claiming that the deputy "treated me like a mad dog" during the arrest, Myers said he developed a hatred for the officer that set the wheels of revenge in motion—a hatred so intense that Myers admitted he had even considered crashing a truck loaded with gasoline into Boone's home.

"Marvin Boone was the main one. In my mind one time I had sort of halfway planned [on] attacking his home in Rowesville, but I overruled attacking his home and family and children, because I didn't know how many children were in the neighborhood," Myers said. "If I'd of run that sucker up against that house and torched it like I did that complex, a lot of people would have been hurt."

That revelation became even more chilling Friday when Boone, the son of then-Sheriff Vance Boone who is now a lance corporal in the State Transport Police, said he was not the officer who arrested Myers—insisting he doesn't remember ever meeting the [sic] Myers, much less arresting him.

The Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office backed up Boone's assertion Friday, stating it was former deputy Johnny Haddock who, along with Larry Williams, arrested Myers for damaging the county roadway.

"Yeah. Larry and I arrested him for damaging county property," Haddock said Saturday. "He claimed we broke his wrist and later filed a civil rights complaint with the FBI. FBI agent Bill Daniels came down to investigate the complaint. After checking into it, Daniels cleared us of any wrongdoing. He told me it appeared Myers made the complaint just out of spite."

....

[Haddock] said he never jerked down on the handcuffs as Myers claimed.

"Myers was 67 years old at the time. We didn't need to use any force, especially having a fella Larry Williams' size there. He didn't try to fight us during the arrest. He just stood there with that off-in-the-west look," Haddock said.

"I've always felt like when he came up there and burned that complex he came looking for me and Larry," Haddock said.

Why Myers continues to insist it was Marvin Boone who arrested him during the road incident is a mystery, Haddock said.

"Marvin and I looked enough alike, I reckon. We were both the same height and size and both of us had dark hair. I had a moustache and Marvin didn't," he said. "But Myers' bread ain't exactly done, either. That's got a lot to do with it."

The article stated when Sunbelt's reporters confronted Myers with evidence that Boone was not the arresting officer and asked if it were possible he had confused Boone with Haddock all these years, Myers insisted he knew without a doubt the arresting officer was Boone. Myers contended the reason "[his] arm was about tore off" was because Boone was upset with him for reporting to the FBI an illegal drug operation from which Myers said law officers were profiting. Myers maintained he had reported to the FBI that a patrol car regularly visited a nearby home and the deputy would "exchange something" with the occupant, and he was suspicious. The article stated: "Myers said he would not identify by name the officer who was going to the residence, but he insinuated Boone and others in the sheriff's office may have been involved."

The paper contacted Boone for his response to Myers' allegations and duly reported that Boone found them "groundless":

Boone, saying he cannot talk further about Myers because he may be called to testify if Myers is brought to trial, did say that such an allegation about drugs is completely groundless. "I never have done anything like that and I never would."

Finally, the article noted: "Adding a final ironic twist to his story, Myers said the letter he had been waiting for from [the Orangeburg County Attorney] informing him who owned Sub Road actually did arrive on the 10th day of the 10-day deadline he gave the county. The problem was it arrived at 3 p.m. that afternoon, after he had plowed up the road." When asked if he had any regrets about the incident, Myers said, "No," and asserted, "Ain't nobody going to deny me of my civil rights. I'd die first ... anytime, anywhere!" The article concluded with Myers' explanation that he "just wanted the public to know what happened."

Boone brought this action for libel against Sunbelt in 1998, alleging he was a public official and Sunbelt published the allegations concerning the alleged use of excessive force and his purported illegal drug activity with actual malice. Boone averred the statements were "false, defamatory, and beyond any qualified privilege." He sought both actual and punitive damages, claiming the article injured his reputation and caused him severe physical and mental suffering.

The trial court granted Sunbelt's motion for summary judgment, ruling the article could not reasonably be read to make a false statement of fact with a defamatory meaning of and concerning Boone. In the alternative, the court concluded as a matter of law that, even if the statements were false, they were privileged under the "neutral reportage doctrine" because they concerned a matter of public interest. Boone appeals.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Summary judgment is appropriate when it is clear there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Rule 56(c), SCRCP; Bayle v. South Carolina Dep't of Transp., 344 S.C. 115, 542 S.E.2d 736 (Ct.App.2001), cert. denied; Olson v. Faculty House of Carolina, Inc., 344 S.C. 194, 544 S.E.2d 38 (Ct.App. 2001), cert. granted; Baird v. Charleston County, 333 S.C. 519, 511 S.E.2d 69 (1999); Vermeer Carolina's, Inc. v. Wood/ Chuck Chipper Corp., 336 S.C. 53, 518 S.E.2d 301 (Ct.App. 1999); see also Green v. Cottrell, 346 S.C. 53, 550 S.E.2d 324 (Ct.App.2001), cert. pending (stating that a trial court should grant motion for summary judgment when pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with affidavits, if any, show there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and moving party is entitled to judgment as matter of law). Under Rule 56(c), the party seeking summary judgment has the initial burden of...