City of Philadelphia v. Washington Post Co.

• Decision Date: 05 December 1979
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 79-3050.
• Citation: 482 F. Supp. 897
• Parties: The CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, on its own behalf, on behalf of the officers and men of the Philadelphia Police Department and on behalf of the citizens of the City of Philadelphia, Plaintiff, v. The WASHINGTON POST COMPANY, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

482 F. Supp. 897

The CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, on its own behalf, on behalf of the officers and men of the Philadelphia Police Department and on behalf of the citizens of the City of Philadelphia, Plaintiff, v. The WASHINGTON POST COMPANY, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 79-3050.

United States District Court, E. D. Pennsylvania.

December 5, 1979.

Sheldon L. Albert, Law Dept., City of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, for plaintiff.

Oliver C. Biddle, Helen P. Pudlin, Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll, Philadelphia, John B. Kuhns, Kevin T. Baine, Washington, D. C., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM

FULLAM, District Judge.

On August 13, 1979, the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in this district, charging the City of Philadelphia, its Mayor, and various police officials with violating the constitutional rights of its citizens by pursuing policies of police abuse and brutality. The following day, the defendant published, in its "Washington Post" newspaper, an account of the lawsuit and the alleged background events leading up to the filing of the lawsuit.

The plaintiff, the City of Philadelphia, has now filed this action for libel, "on its own behalf, on behalf of the officers and men of the Philadelphia Police Department and on behalf of the citizens of the City of Philadelphia." The City complains about the following statements contained in the "Washington Post" article:

"On a cool, damp spring night two years ago, more than 20 Philadelphians watched in stunned disbelief as 10 policemen beat a black man, breaking nightsticks on his head and shoulders, after he had run a stop sign.

. . . . .

"Seven months later, six Philadelphia homicide detectives were convicted in an unrelated case in federal court for beating and intimidating eight people . .

. . . . .

"Nor was Mayor Rizzo's reaction to the suit a surprise. Asked about the extent of police brutality in the city, Rizzo said: `I've never seen any.'

. . . . .

". . . the indictment and arrest of more than 30 Philadelphia policemen by state and federal authorities.

". . . police department statistics show that more than 150 civilians have been killed by policemen. In more than half those cases, the civilians were unarmed when they were beaten or shot.

"In none of those cases were the policemen suspended or disciplined publicly . . . .

"A typical shooting case is being heard in a Philadelphia court this week.

. . . . .

". . . There, Bowe shot Warren in the head.

". . . The defendant remains on active duty as he sits in the courtroom each day."

The City charges that these statements were published "with the sole purpose of falsely and maliciously portraying an official policy of police oppression reaching every encounter with a Philadelphia policeman" (¶ 9 of the Complaint); that as a result of the publication of the article, the City, its police force, and its citizenry "have been brought into disgrace, disrepute and humiliation;" and that the public generally has been misled into believing that Philadelphia is an unsuitable place to live, and an unsafe place to visit. Plaintiff seeks $10 million in compensatory damages and an additional $10 million in punitive damages.

Not surprisingly, the defendant has filed a Motion to Dismiss. The Motion must, for rather obvious reasons, be granted.

The City cannot maintain an action for libel on its own behalf. A governmental entity is incapable of being libeled. The Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of Manchester v. Williams, 1 Q.B. 94 (1891) (such an action is "altogether unprecedented" and "there is no principle on which it could be founded" (Id. at p. 96)). More fundamentally, to permit such a lawsuit to be maintained, either on behalf of the City itself, the citizens of the City, or officials or employees of the City, would plainly violate the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964), the Court stated:

"For good reason, `no court of last resort in this country has ever held, or even suggested, that prosecutions for libel on government have any place in the American system of jurisprudence.' City of Chicago v. Tribune Co., 307 Ill. 595, 601, 139 N.E. 86, 88, 28 A.L.R. 1368 (1923). The present proposition would sidestep this obstacle by transmuting criticism of government, however impersonal it may seem on its face, into personal criticism, and hence potential libel, of the officials of whom the government is composed . . . We hold that such a proposition may not constitutionally be utilized to establish that an otherwise impersonal attack on governmental operations was a

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