Harrington v. Costello

Citation7 N.E.3d 449,467 Mass. 720
Decision Date09 April 2014
Docket NumberSJC–11383.
CourtUnited States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
PartiesJohn P. HARRINGTON v. William M. COSTELLO & another.

467 Mass. 720
7 N.E.3d 449

John P. HARRINGTON
v.
William M. COSTELLO & another.
1

SJC–11383.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,
Norfolk.

Argued Dec. 2, 2013.
Decided April 9, 2014.


[7 N.E.3d 450]


Frank L. McNamara, Jr., for the plaintiff.

Ross A. Kimball, Boston, for the defendants.


Present: IRELAND, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, BOTSFORD, GANTS, DUFFLY, & LENK, JJ.

[7 N.E.3d 451]



BOTSFORD, J.

This is a defamation action, before us on further appellate review. The plaintiff, John P. Harrington, and the two defendants, William M. Costello and John A. Perry, are Roman Catholic priests. Harrington claims that the defendants published, in the parish where Harrington was serving, a false and defamatory statement to the effect that a parishioner had accused Harrington of stalking her minor son, and that Harrington suffered substantial personal harm as a result. A judge in the Superior Court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint on statute of limitations grounds. A divided panel of the Appeals Court affirmed. Harrington v. Costello, 82 Mass.App.Ct. 812, 978 N.E.2d 1208 (2012).

Harrington argues that under proper application of the so-called discovery rule, the statute of limitations is tolled until the plaintiff knows the identity of the defendant. He claims that here, although he knew that Costello and Perry had published the defamatory 2 stalking accusation in 2005, he reasonably could believe they were privileged or entitled to do so; and that he did not know that they were the proper defendants until he discovered, in November of 2007 (within the limitations period), that Costello, with Perry's knowledge, had fabricated completely the defamatory stalking accusation. We agree with Harrington that under the discovery rule, knowledge of the identity of the defendant is necessary for a cause of action to accrue—in addition to knowledge of the harm for which recovery is sought and of the cause of that harm. In the case of defamation, however, the harm for which recovery is sought, at its core, is the publication of the defamatory material, and therefore it is knowledge of the publisher's identity that is required; whether the publisher can claim a qualified or conditional privilege to publish is a separate matter. Because Harrington's complaint alleges he knew in 2005 that the defendants were the publishers of the defamatory stalking accusation that caused him harm, we conclude that his complaint was not timely filed. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment dismissing the complaint.

1. Background. a. Facts. We summarize the facts alleged in Harrington's complaint, accepting them as true. Golchin v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 460 Mass. 222, 223, 950 N.E.2d 853 (2011), S.C.,466 Mass. 156, 993 N.E.2d 684 (2013), quoting Marram v. Kobrick Offshore Fund, Ltd., 442 Mass. 43, 45, 809 N.E.2d 1017 (2004). The parties are all ordained priests in the Roman Catholic Church. In January of 2005, Harrington was serving as a priest at St. Patrick's Church (St. Patrick's) in Falmouth, in the Diocese of Fall River. Perry was the pastor at St. Patrick's and was Harrington's superior; Perry also served as the vicar general of the diocese. Costello was the pastor of St. Anthony's Catholic Church (St. Anthony's) in East Falmouth. At some point in January, Costello telephoned Perry and told him that a parishioner of St. Patrick's (parishioner) had accused Harrington of stalking her minor son, a high school student, and wanted to transfer her son from the religious education program at St. Patrick's to the counterpart program at St. Anthony's. In response to Costello's call, Perry spoke to the two directors of religious education at St. Patrick's, learned that the parishioner's son indeed had withdrawn

[7 N.E.3d 452]

from the religious education program, and then told the two directors, “[T]hat is the young man whose mother has accused Father Harrington of stalking.”

Thereafter, Perry contacted Harrington and informed him of the stalking accusation conveyed by Costello. The accusation of stalking was false, as Harrington explained to Perry; he urged Perry to speak to the parishioner directly. Perry did so, and then spoke again to Harrington, telling him that the parishioner said that she had never told Costello that Harrington was stalking her son. What the parishioner in fact said to Perry, however, was that she had spoken with a coworker, Michael LeBrun, about “her son's situation,” not Costello, but that she had never informed LeBrun or anyone else that Harrington was stalking her son. Perry thus withheld from Harrington everything the parishioner told him other than that she had not personally conveyed the stalking accusation to Costello.

Harrington then spoke to Costello, who informed Harrington that he, Costello, had been mistaken: it had not been the parishioner who told him of the stalking accusation, but instead had been a coworker of that parishioner, a man who was a member of St. Anthony's congregation and a friend of Costello's. Although Harrington asked Costello for the name of the coworker, Costello refused to provide it, as did Perry when Harrington later asked him for the name—although Perry made it clear he knew the name.

Following the publication of the stalking accusation, Harrington was subjected to harassment and ridicule in the St. Patrick's community. In May of 2005, Harrington met with Perry and Bishop George Coleman of the Fall River Diocese. Bishop Coleman made it clear that Harrington was not going to learn the identity of the coworker who, according to Costello and Perry, was the source of the statement about the parishioner's stalking accusation; the bishop instead indicated that Harrington should drop the matter. Thereafter, the bishop suspended Harrington from living in diocesan housing, an action creating the potential for Harrington to be stigmatized as a priest accused of sexual abuse.

On November 6, 2007, Harrington finally learned of LeBrun's identity. 3 That same day, Harrington met and spoke with LeBrun, who stated that he had never accused Harrington of stalking the parishioner's son.4 Harrington became aware at that point that Costello had fabricated completely the stalking accusation, and that Bishop Coleman, Perry, and Costello had “engaged in a ‘conspiracy of silence’ to prevent Harrington from discovering the true source of the allegations, namely Costello.” In April, 2009, Perry confirmed that LeBrun was, in fact, the person whose identity was kept from Harrington.

b. Procedural history. On November 1, 2010, Harrington filed his complaint against Perry and Costello in the Superior Court. Thereafter, the defendants moved to dismiss the complaint on statute of limitations grounds, arguing that the applicable three-year limitations period, see G.L. c. 260, § 4, barred Harrington's suit. A Superior Court judge granted the motion, concluding that the discovery rule did not toll the statute of limitations, because all the facts giving rise to the cause of action for defamation against the defendants

[7 N.E.3d 453]

were known to Harrington in 2005, five years before the complaint was filed. The judge also ruled that G.L. c. 260, § 12,5 did not toll the limitations period, because the defendants had not concealed the facts giving rise to a cause of action for defamation, and Harrington was aware of all of those facts in 2005.

In his appeal to the Appeals Court, the plaintiff argued for the first time that the statute of limitations was tolled until November 6, 2007, because Harrington reasonably could have believed until then that the defendants were permitted or privileged to repeat the defamatory statement about the accusation of stalking a minor to each other and to the religious education directors. The majority of the Appeals Court rejected the claim, agreeing with the motion judge that the statute of limitations had run. Harrington v. Costello, 82 Mass.App.Ct. at 815–816, 978 N.E.2d 1208. The dissenting justice agreed with Harrington. Id. at 817–821, 978 N.E.2d 1208 (Trainor, J., dissenting). We granted Harrington's application for further appellate review.

2. Discussion. a. Standard of review. We review the allowance of a motion to dismiss de novo, accepting the allegations in the complaint as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor. Curtis v. Herb Chambers I–95, Inc., 458 Mass. 674, 676, 940 N.E.2d 413 (2011), and cases cited. To survive a motion to dismiss, the factual allegations must plausibly suggest that the plaintiff is entitled to relief; they must “raise a right to relief above the speculative level ... [based] on the assumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact).” Iannacchino v. Ford Motor Co., 451 Mass. 623, 636, 888 N.E.2d 879 (2008), quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007).6

b. Statute of limitations and discovery rule. Under G.L. c. 260, § 4, an action for defamation must be “commenced only within three years next after the cause of action accrues.” The definition of accrual for the purposes of G.L. c. 260, § 4, has been left to judicial interpretation. See, e.g., Riley v. Presnell, 409 Mass. 239, 243, 565 N.E.2d 780 (1991), quoting Franklin v. Albert, 381 Mass. 611, 617, 411 N.E.2d 458 (1980). In defamation cases, “the general rule is that the cause of action accrues, and the statute of limitations begins to run, on publication of the defamatory statement.” Flynn v. Associated Press, 401 Mass. 776, 780, 519 N.E.2d 1304 (1988). A statement is published when it

[7 N.E.3d 454]

is communicated to a third party. White v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mass., Inc., 442 Mass. 64, 66, 809 N.E.2d 1034 (2004). Because he filed his complaint more than three years after publication of the alleged defamatory statement that he was accused of stalking a minor, Harrington has the burden of establishing facts that take him outside the statutory three-year limitations...

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