Engelmohr v. Bache
| Decision Date | 22 April 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 37573,37573 |
| Parties | Carl H. ENGELMOHR, Appellant, v. Harold BACHE, individually and as a copartner in Bache & Co., and Girton Viereck, Respondents. |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Miracle, Treadwell & Pruzan, Seattle, for appellant.
Holman, Marion, Black, Perkins & Coie, William M. Holman, Theodore J. Collins, Seattle, for respondents.
This is an appeal from a summary judgment in favor of the defendants in a slander action in which the plaintiff (appellant), Carl H. Engelmohr, seeks recovery of $500,000 damages from the defendants (respondents), Harold Bache, individually, and as a co-partner in the brokerage firm of Bache & Co., Girton Viereck, manager of the firm's Seattle office, and others.
Engelmohr, former assistant manager under Viereck, contends that the defendants slandered him May 11, 1962 during a hearing in Washington, D.C. conducted by the 'Special Study of Securities Markets,' hereafter designated the 'Study Group.'
The Study Group had been appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, pursuant to Public Law 87--196, 75 Stat. 465, which directed the S.E.C. to make a 'study and investigation' of the rules governing national securities exchanges and associations, for the purpose of determining whether such rules adequately protected investors, and to report back to Congress on or before January 3, 1963, with its results and recommendations for legislation.
The trial court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on the ground that the statements made before the Study Group were absolutely privileged, and that the defendants, therefore, were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. This appeal followed.
The sole issue raised by the plaintiff's assignment of error is whether the trial court erred in its determination that such privilege was absolute. It is the plaintiff's contention that the Study Group was an administrative body, that the hearing in which the defendants testified was an administrative proceeding which was not quasi-judicial in nature, and that defendants, therefore, were afforded, at most, a qualified privilege wherein false statements were immune from a defamation action only if made in good faith and without malice.
It is the well-established, general law that the absolute privilege applies in three general areas, (1) judicial proceedings, (2) legislative proceedings, and (3) acts of important government executives. It is here that protection of the individual's interest in his reputation must yield to the public good, to permit the free function of the processes of government. Absolute privilege is defined, together with a statement of the doctrine, its purpose and application in 33 Am.Jur., Libel and Slander § 125, as supplemented:
'An absolutely privileged communication is one in respect of which, by reason of the occasion on which, or the matter in reference to which, it is made, no remedy can be had in a civil action, however hard it may bear upon a person who claims to be injured thereby, and even though it may have been made maliciously.
'The doctrine of absolute privilege is based upon the principle of good public policy, in that the interests and necessities of society require that on certain occasions utterances or publications of individuals, even though they are both false and maliciously made, shall protect the defamer from all liability to prosecution. * * *
'The class of absolutely privileged communications is narrow and is practically limited to legislative and judicial proceedings and other acts of state, including, it is said, communications made in the discharge of a duty under express authority of law, by or to heads of executive departments of the state, and matters involving military affairs. * * *'
Also see 3 Restatement, Torts, pp. 585--590.
The law is equally clear that the absolute privilege will be extended to administrative proceedings conducted in a manner with safeguards similar to a judicial proceeding. The general attitude of the courts in this regard is well stated in the New Jersey case of Rainier's Dairies v. Raritan Valley Farms, 19 N.J. 552, 562, 117 A.2d 889, 894 (1955):
'* * * But where, as here, the administrative proceeding was actually conducted in manner and with safeguards similar to a judicial proceeding and dealt with issues of significant public concern there would, under this or any other plausible view, be no basis for refusing to invoke the doctrine of absolute privilege or immunity to the same extent that it...
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McDermott v. Hughley
...of State police lacked subpoena power; uncertain whether witnesses subject to perjury; no evidentiary rules followed); Engelmohr v. Bache, 66 Wash.2d 103, 401 P.2d 346, cert. dismissed, 382 U.S. 950, 86 S.Ct. 431, 15 L.Ed.2d 463 (1965) (proceeding before study group appointed by S.E.C. mere......
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...be applied only when the system is otherwise structured to provide safeguards against judicial errors. Cf. Engelmohr v. Bache, 66 Wash.2d 103, 105-06, 401 P.2d 346 (1965) (absolutely privileged communications not recognized in administrative proceedings lacking safeguards similar to those i......
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Richmond v. Thompson, 63541-2
...areas: (1) judicial proceedings, (2) legislative proceedings, and (3) acts of important government executives. Engelmohr v. Bache, 66 Wash.2d 103, 104, 401 P.2d 346, cert. dismissed, 382 U.S. 950, 86 S.Ct. 431, 15 L.Ed.2d 463 (1965). In these situations, "public service and administration o......
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