Condit v. Dunne
| Decision Date | 27 April 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 02 Civ. 9910(PKL).,02 Civ. 9910(PKL). |
| Citation | 317 F.Supp.2d 344 |
| Parties | Gary CONDIT, Plaintiff, v. Dominick DUNNE, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
L. Lin Wood, Katherine M. Ventulett, L. Lin Wood, P.C., Atlanta, GA, Mark E. Goidell, Lazer, Aptheker, Rosella & Yedid, P.C., Melville, NY, for Plaintiff.
Laura R. Handman, Samuel M. Leaf, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, New York, NY, for Defendants.
This action brings the Court to the tire-streaked intersection of the right of one citizen to protect his reputation and the right of another citizen to speak freely. Plaintiff in this case is Gary Condit, a former member of the United States House of Representatives, who served as Congressman for the 18th Congressional District of California. Defendant is Dominick Dunne, a special correspondent to Vanity Fair magazine, author, and television commentator. Plaintiff brings the action against defendant for slander, based upon comments made by defendant during appearances on, inter alia, The Laura Ingraham Show and Larry King Live. Plaintiff claims that defendant uttered false statements that implicated plaintiff in an alleged kidnapping and/or murder of Chandra Levy, an acquaintance of plaintiff who disappeared in 2001.
Defendant now moves to dismiss the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, arguing primarily that the statements at issue are opinions, and as such are not actionable. Defendant moves alternatively for summary judgment under Rule 56. Plaintiff opposes the motion. For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies in part and grants in part defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint.
For the purposes of defendant's motion, the Court accepts the allegations stated in the complaint as true. Rothman v. Gregor, 220 F.3d 81, 91 (2d Cir.2000). Therefore the relevant facts, as alleged by plaintiff in his complaint, are as follows.
Plaintiff, a resident of California, served as a member of the United States House of Representatives as a Congressman for the 18th Congressional District of California at all times relevant to this action. (Plaintiff's Amended Complaint, ¶¶ 2-3 ("Compl.").) On or about May 1, 2001, Ms. Levy, a 24-year old employee of the United States Bureau of Prisons, disappeared from her downtown Washington, D.C. apartment. (Compl., ¶ 13.) Shortly after Ms. Levy's disappearance, plaintiff publicly acknowledged that he and Ms. Levy were friends. (Compl., ¶ 15.) As law enforcement investigated Ms. Levy's disappearance, a media frenzy ensued which focused in large part on speculation about the relationship between plaintiff and Ms. Levy. (Compl., ¶¶ 16-17.)
Defendant, a resident of New York, is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine, an author, and a television commentator. (Compl., ¶¶ 5-7.) With the disappearance of Ms. Levy still under investigation, defendant spoke publicly on five occasions about plaintiff's possible criminal involvement in Ms. Levy's disappearance. (Compl., ¶¶ 18-20, 28-33.)
On December 20, 2001, defendant appeared on The Laura Ingraham Show, a nationally syndicated radio talk show, and made statements during an interview that plaintiff describes in his moving papers as "the centerpieces of his complaint for slander." (Compl., ¶ 20; Memorandum of Law of Plaintiff Gary Condit in Opposition to Defendant's Motion To Dismiss the Action, or, in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment, at 3 ("Plaintiff's Opposition").) Plaintiff includes a transcript of the entire interview in his complaint. (Compl., ¶ 20.) The Court attaches a transcript of the interview on The Laura Ingraham Show as an appendix to this opinion and order.
The fully documented interview speaks for itself. See supra, Appendix. In short, the radio host, Laura Ingraham, introduces defendant at the outset, noting that defendant is from Vanity Fair magazine, that defendant has followed the Chandra Levy case, and that defendant has interesting stories to tell related to that case. Defendant then describes a series of alleged events related to plaintiff and Ms. Levy, in interview style, with Ingraham interjecting intermittently.
Defendant states that he received a call from a person from Salinas, California, who describes himself as a "horse whisperer" or animal behaviorist. Defendant then repeats the substance of the conversation between himself and the horse whisperer. The horse whisperer told defendant that he travels in the Middle East, and that he had met an Arab man at a party who claimed to know about how Ms. Levy disappeared. Defendant states that the horse whisperer described the Arab man as a "procurer," who provided the sexual services of young foreign women in the Middle East and at the "Middle Eastern Embassy" in Washington. Defendant then states the following:
But according to what the procurer told the horse whisperer who told me, is that Gary Condit was often a guest at some of the Middle Eastern embassies in Washington where all these ladies were, and that he had let it be known that he was in a relationship with a woman that was over, but she was a clinger. He couldn't get rid of her. And he had made promises to her that he couldn't keep and apparently she knew things about him and threatened to go public. And at one point he said this woman is driving me crazy, or words to that effect. And I wrote all this down at the time. And what the horse whisperer said the procurer said is by saying that, he created the environment that led to her disappearance and she shortly thereafter vanished. And as the horse whisperer said, as he lives in the Middle East a great deal of the time, it's very easy for them to make people disappear. He said that she was put in a limousine, and this procurer claims that he saw her being put on a plane, one of these big commercial-sized private planes that the Arabs have, rich princes, and those people.... And he said, let me put it this way. She wasn't walking. (Compl., ¶ 20 at 10.)
. . . . .
[Ingraham:] And what does [the procurer] think happened to her after that?
[Dunne:] What he said he thought happened to her is that she was dropped at sea.
[Ingraham:] In the Atlantic? Over the Atlantic?
[Dunne:] Yes. (Compl., ¶ 20 at 14.)
Defendant then states that (Compl., ¶ 20 at 12.) Defendant agrees with Ingraham's description of the horse whisperer as a "respectable individual," (Compl., ¶ 20 at 12.), but notes twice that the horse whisperer changed his story. (Compl., ¶ 20 at 8, 16.)
During the next portion of the interview, defendant describes his subsequent contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), and his effort to meet the procurer, which was fruitless. Defendant states that at the time of the interview he did not know the status of any FBI investigation into the story told to him by the horse whisperer. For the remainder of the interview defendant and Ingraham engage in speculation about the story. For example, Ingraham asks defendant, "[D]oes this surprise you at all, I mean, if indeed some version of this is the truth?" Defendant does not directly answer Ingraham's question, which is embedded in a lengthier statement by Ingraham. (Compl., ¶ 20 at 18.) Also for example, defendant later states, "And, you know, if it is indeed true that [Condit] is a welcomed guest at the Middle Eastern embassies, I mean what is a guy on the House Intelligence Committee doing at those embassies?" (Compl., ¶ 20 at 20.) Defendant and Ingraham agree that the horse whisperer's story makes "beautiful sense." (Compl., ¶ 20 at 18-19.)
After appearing on The Laura Ingraham Show, defendant repeated the statements he had made on the show at two dinner parties, one in California and one in New York. (Compl., ¶¶ 28-29, 31-32.) The complaint does not describe any particular statements defendant made at these parties.
In January 2002, Paulette Cohn of Entertainment Tonight Online ("ET Online") interviewed defendant. (Compl., ¶ 30.) On January 18, 2002, Cohn's internet column included the following:
"Gary Condit rides with the Hell's Angels as a motorcyclist," Dunne revealed. "He rides with a Haitian motorcycle group in Washington, and I went on `Larry King' and said that I thought that the reason she left was that she'd gotten on the back of a motorcycle — somebody doing a favor for him — and had been taken away."
The crime writer said that he the [sic] received With the investigation still pending, Dunne could not reveal any more information, but noted that he's working with authorities in Washington, D.C. (Compl., ¶ 30.)
On February 13, 2002, defendant appeared on the television show Larry King Live for the second time. He had previously appeared on the show and theorized that Ms. Levy had "gone off on the motorcycle of one of Condit's motorcycle friends." (Compl., ¶ 33.) During the February 13 interview on Larry King Live, defendant repeated an abbreviated version of the horse whisperer/procurer story that he described on The Laura Ingraham Show in December 2001. Defendant also stated, "I believe firmly that he knows more than what he has ever said." (Compl., ¶ 33.)
On May 22, 2002, Ms. Levy's remains were found in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. (Compl., ¶ 34.) Shortly...
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