General Motors Corp. v. Piskor

• Decision Date: 25 June 1975
• Docket Number: No. 397,397
• Citation: General Motors Corp. v. Piskor, 340 A.2d 767, 27 Md.App. 95 (Md. App. 1975)
• Parties: GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION v. Roy J. PISKOR.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 95

27 Md.App. 95

340 A.2d 767

GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION v.Roy J. PISKOR.

No. 397.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

June 25, 1975.

[340 A.2d 771] Francis B. Burch, Jr., Baltimore, with whom

were Joseph G. Finnerty, Jr., and Edward S. Digges, Jr., Baltimore, on the brief, for appellant.

Leo A. Hughes, Jr., Baltimore, with whom were Ronald L. Lapides, Robert W. Fox and Steen, Hughes & Seigel, Baltimore, on the brief, for appellee.

Argued Dec. 2, 1974 and Reargued April 8, 1975 before ORTH, C. J., and MORTON and THOMPSON, JJ.

ORTH, Chief Judge.

On 30 April 1974 a jury in the Superior Court of Baltimore City decided that General Motors Corporation had violated the personal security of Roy j. Piskor by the commission of three tortious acts.It found that General Motors had slandered Piskor, had assaulted him, and had falsely imprisoned him.It awarded Piskor compensatory damages of $1000 for the slander, $300 for the assault, and $200 for the false imprisonment.It assessed punitive damages of $25,000.From judgment on verdict absolute entered on 8 May, General Motors appealed.¹

DEFAMATION AND CONSTITUTIONAL PRIVILEGE

When the appeal was originally briefed and argued no reference was made to recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States which brought defamation within the scope of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and press, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.²Because we were concerned with the impact of those decisions on the prevailing law of defamation in Maryland, we ordered the appeal and the appeal in the case of Sindorf v. Jacron Sales Co., Inc., which had also been briefed and argued with no reference to the Supreme Court defamation cases, reargued in the light of those decisions.The case which was the prime reason for our action was Gertz v. Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 41 L.Ed.2d 789(1974).Gertz was one of the progency of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686(1964).It was New York Times and its numerous offspring decided before Gertz which measured state law, both civil and criminal, with respect to libel, slander and privacy, by constitutional standards, impressing on it the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and press.They did so in such a way as to grant immunity from punishment by way of damages, imprisonment, fine or otherwise to publishers of statements concerning the official conduct of public officials and concerning matters of public interest related to public figures.SeeA. S. Abell Co. v. Barnes, supra, 258 Md. at 59-60, 265 A.2d 207.Gertz dealt with the defamation of a private individual as distinguished from a public official or public figure, and apparently its holdings drastically affected state law in that area.We decided Sindorf, using it to analyze Gertz.Sindorf v. Jacron Sales Co., Inc., Md.App., 341 A.2d 856, filed June 25, 1975.In our reading of Gertz we saw three paths which could be followed in applying its holdings: (1)they applied to all defamations; (2)they applied only to defamations involving matters of public or general interest, thus excluding purely private defamations; and (3)they applied only to defamations in which the media were the means of the defamatory injury.We avoided the first path because we believed that it was not constitutionally required that we follow it.Its route led to a scuttling of much of the prevailing defamation law of Maryland as to matters which were of no concern to the First Amendment freedoms of speech and press.We chose the second path and rejected the third for reasons fully set out in Sindorf.Following the second path, we were led to these conclusions:

(1) The New York Times standard defining the level of constitutional protection appropriate to the context of a public person was reaffirmed.Public officials and public figures may recover for injury to reputation only on clear and convincing proof that the defamatory falsehood was made with 'actual malice', that is, with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth.

(2) When a defamatory statement, whether published by the media or not concerns a matter of public or general interest:

a) except for imposing liability without fault, a State may define the appropriate standard of liability for injury to a private individual by a defamatory falsehood, or in other words, short of strict liability, the New York Times standard is not constitutionally required with respect to defamatory falsehood injurious to a private individual b) a State may not permit recovery of presumed or punitive damages when liability is not based on proof of knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth, that is, presumed or punitive damages may be recovered only upon a showing of 'actual malice' in the constitutional sense.

(3) A purely private defamation-when a private individual is injured by a defamatory falsehood which is not a matter of public or general interest-is not within the ambit of the First Amendment and the relevant State law prevails, the Gertz holdings not being impressed thereon.

FACTS

What happened between Piskor and General Motors which led to the action reviewed by us is gleaned from the evidence adduced at the trial.We give a compendium of it.

At the General Motors automobile assembly plant in Baltimore, members of its security detail manned a checkpoint at the change of a shift to assure that only authorized personnel entered the plant and that employees leaving the plant were not stealing their employer's goods.There were stairs leading from the work floor to a landing or 'platform' and stairs from the landing to the ingress and egress doors of the plant.The checkpoint was on the landing, which was immediately adjacent to the security detail's office, referred to as the 'guard office.'The stairs leading from the work floor to the landing were near the Hard Trim assembly line, and also close by the clocks which were 'punched' by employees to register the time they arrived for and departed from work.The Console Assembly line was located at a point more distant from the stairs than the Hard Trim line.It was on the Console line that vehicle components generally described as the 'dashboard' were stored and assembled.These components included relatively small but valuable parts such as radios, tape players and tachometers.Security was a constant problem on this line, and there had been a number of thefts of such items.

Piskor, 19 years of age and unmarried, had been employed by General Motors for about a year and a half.He worked on the Hard Trim line on the shift which ended at 4:00 p. m. William Bullock worked the same shift on the Console line.He installed radios and had a number of them stacked at his job site.On 30 December 1969, about 3:40 p. m., Piskor went from the Hard Trim line to the Console line and talked for a few minutes with Bullock about a ride home.About 5 minutes before the shift ended Piskor returned to the Console line and again conversed with Bullock for a short time.When the whistle blew for the shift change, Piskor undertook to leave the plant.

Colby West was the foreman of the Console line.West did not know Piskor personally, but had seen him with Bullock several times in the past.West saw Piskor talk to Bullock each time on 30 December.The first time Piskor was dressed in 'regular work clothes', but the second time he had on an 'Army fatigue jacket', a loose fitting outer garment with a zipper closure from bottom to the collar.It had two large 'kangaroo pockets' in front.The jacket was zipped up to the neck.Piskor talked to Bullock for a few minutes and left the area.When he left he had his hands in the front pockets of the jacket and he'seemed to be in a stooped or hunched fashion with his hands pushed forward in the front of his jacket.'This aroused West's suspicion.³He telephoned the security guard's office and talked to Claude L. Nicely, the sergeant in charge of the detail at the checkpoint.He told Nicely what he had observed and described Piskor.Nicely stationed his detail on the landing as be usually did at the end of a shift.

To leave the plant, Piskor had to go back through the Hard Trim line area and then to the time clock for his card.He punched out and started up the stairs to the landing by the guard office.

Nicely saw a man answering Piskor's description approach the time clock.'His jacket was still buttoned up.He was still carrying himself in a hunched position and had both hands in the pockets.He removed his right hand and got the time card, punched it out, and put it on the outside of the rack and put his hand back in his field jacket.His posture was more or less hunched over like.A field jacket is a rather bulky garment. . . .'On some points, the evidence as to what followed is conflicting.

According to Piskor, as he approached the landing, he'heard this guy yelling and pointing.'The man he heard was West.He was standing by the guard office.There was a guard at each railing at the top of the first flight of stairs.Piskor continued up the stairs to the landing.⁴He was 'grabbed' by a guard.'I just pulled my arm away from him and I shook him off and when I did that the other guard grabbed my other arm and I just, you know, twisted around and started running away.And then I hear them yelling behind me. . . .You are walking pretty fast because there's people everywhere. . . .The fastest walk you can think.'Neither the guards nor Piskor said anything when the guards grabbed him.Piskor started up the second flight of stairs leading from the landing to the exit.'Then I got a couple steps up and I hear all these people yelling a lot of commotion going on behind me and then there was guards standing at the top of them steps. . . .Approximately three or four.There was a lot of them. . . .Then they more or less sealed off...