Hohman v. A. S. Abell Co.
| Decision Date | 13 November 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 238,238 |
| Citation | 407 A.2d 794,44 Md.App. 193 |
| Parties | , 5 Media L. Rep. 2223 Frank C. HOHMAN v. The A. S. ABELL COMPANY. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Frank H. Newell, III, Towson, for appellant.
James K. Archibald, Baltimore, with whom were Venable, Baetjer & Howard, Baltimore, on the brief, for appellee.
Argued before GILBERT, C. J., and COUCH and MacDANIEL, JJ.
The question before the Court in this appeal is whether the trial court erred in directing a verdict in favor of The A. S Abell Company, defendant below and appellee here, in a civil suit filed against it by Frank C. Hohman, plaintiff below and appellant here, for damages resulting from an allegedly libelous statement contained in an article printed in appellee's newspaper, The Sun.
Prior to Frank C. Hohman's (appellant) retirement on December 1, 1975, he was a major in the Baltimore County Police Department with over 29 years of service. Appellee's morning newspaper, The Sun, began publishing a series of articles on August 24, 1975 dealing with towing operations in Baltimore County. The final article, published on January 22, 1976, generated the present dispute. Considering the nature of this case, we shall set forth the entire article below:
"Baltimore county police were lax in their regulation of towing firms, according to a 31/2-month internal investigation of charges of favoritism in the county's police-controlled towing business.
The formal investigation report cites for 'nonfeasance' an unspecified number of unnamed high-ranking officers no longer with the department.
Although the report finds no evidence of criminal misconduct by current or former policemen, it says 'subjective evidence would indicate that police officials had not fully exercised their administrative abilities' in overseeing those firms licensed to take police calls to tow disabled vehicles.
Specifically, the report concludes that, in the past, towing license applications were approved or disapproved without written justification, official records of towing licensees were poor or non-existent and the tow truck operators were seldom if ever inspected for compliance with the law.
The nine-page report, dated January 7 and signed by Joseph R. Gallen, the police chief, has not yet been made public, but copies have been distributed within the department and sent to the county executive and state's attorney.
Sandra A. O'Connor, the state's attorney, will use the findings in her own probe of the department and the towing industry. She has said this investigation will be a top priority of the new grand jury sworn in last week.
The report is the first formal confirmation of articles in The Sun as early as August stating that a politically well-connected Essex garage owner had established the largest towing business in that area, apparently because county police had limited his competition by control of the licensing procedure and had gerrymandered his authorized zone of operations to include some of the county's most heavily traveled roads.
The garage owner, William E. Eiler, who lost his towing license in the ensuing investigation, is a friend of several once-powerful Democratic politicians and former police officers, including Ellison W. Ensor, the former chief.
Mr. Ensor retired September 1 amid the investigation into corruption charges within the 1,180-member police force.
Mr. Gallen was then named acting chief by Theodore G. Venetoulis, the county executive, with orders to pursue the probe. Subsequently, Mr. Gallen received the permanent appointment as chief.
Several high-ranking officers closely identified with the former chief also have subsequently retired. They include:
* Col. Gordon C. Lee, the former operations officer, who had custody of the licensing files for towing operators.
* Maj. Louis G. Roemer, the former chief of detectives and also a friend of Mr. Eiler.
* Maj. Frank Hohman, former head of the Traffic Division, who kept the complaint files on towing operators.
* Capt. Charles L. Krach, former commander of the Eastern Patrol Bureau, who was responsible for drawing the towing zone boundaries in the Essex area.
These four officers, as well as Chief Ensor, were among those charged with 'nonfeasance,' according to a reliable source.
Colonel Lee and Major Hohman were named in one section of the report which described the 'poor record-keeping system' within the department relating to towing operators.
Police investigators also faulted the county Department of Permits and Licenses for 'sloppy record keeping' relating to towing and suggested that 'effective internal management procedures be adopted.'
The report also referred to one unidentified towing operator who 'may have committed several violations of law' other than the county towing statute and who is under investigation for possible criminal indictment by the state's attorney.
At the conclusion of the report, Chief Gallen spelled out a new licensing procedure he has implemented, which will include at least three inspections a year of the county's approximately 31 police-licensed towing companies."
Appellant, at trial, claimed that this article falsely accused him of having been charged with a crime (nonfeasance) and that he had been damaged in his good name and reputation, particularly his reputation as a former law enforcement officer and as a former county employee of honesty and integrity.
Appellee successfully maintained below, that the article was not defamatory and that, even if it were, there was no evidence of actual malice sufficient for the jury to consider whether appellee's constitutional privilege had been overcome. 1 New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964).
The trial judge, in granting appellee's motion for a directed verdict at the close of all the evidence, concluded that the article was not defamatory since, in the context of the entire article, the allegedly libelous paragraph, "These four officers (referring to appellant and three others), as well as Chief Ensor, were among those charged with 'nonfeasance,' according to a reliable source", did not charge appellant with a crime. The trial court arrived at this conclusion based upon two statements in the article which precede the offending paragraph. Those statements are as follows:
The threshold question of whether an article is defamatory is one of law to be determined by the court. The trial court correctly considered the article in its entirety, Heath v. Hughes, 233 Md. 458, 464, 197 A.2d 104 (1964); See Bowie v. Evening News, 148 Md. 569, 574, 129 A. 797 (1925); Flaks v. Clark, 143 Md. 377, 382, 122 A. 383 (1923). The Court of Appeals in Flaks v. Clark, supra, stated well the rule applied by the trial court:
Id. at 382, 122 A. at 385. The two preceding statements in the article, which relate that the investigative report found no evidence of Criminal misconduct by former policemen and that the state's attorney "will use" the findings from the report in her own probe, could be viewed as negating an inference that appellee was ascribing to appellant the commission of a crime. Nevertheless, we disagree with the trial court that, as a matter of law, the article was not defamatory although we conclude the case was properly withheld from the jury. We say this because it could be inferred that the author of the article was dealing with two separate sources: one, Chief Gallen's report, and another being "a reliable source". Thus, while the report itself may have stated there was no evidence of criminal misconduct, it could be inferred that a "reliable source" said appellant and three others were "charged with nonfeasance", an admitted crime. In our view, keeping in mind the standard to be used by a trial judge in ruling on a motion for a directed verdict, reasonable readers of the article could have concluded appellant was said to have been charged with the commission of a crime. The trial judge, it seems to us, recognized his function when he stated in his oral opinion granting the motion:
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Batson v. Shiflett
...context in which they are used and a meaning not warranted by the whole publication should not be imputed. Hohman v. A.S. Abell Co., 44 Md.App. 193, 197, 407 A.2d 794, 797 (1979) (reviewing article and concluding that reasonable readers may have concluded the plaintiff was charged with a cr......
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Batson v. Shiflett
...context in which they are used and a meaning not warranted by the whole publication should not be imputed. Hohman v. A.S. Abell Co., 44 Md.App. 193, 197, 407 A.2d 794, 797 (1979) (reviewing article and concluding that reasonable readers may have concluded the plaintiff was charged with a cr......
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Mates v. North American Vaccine, Inc., Civ.A. AW98-3678.
...because "words have different meanings depending on the context in which they are used." Id.; see also Hohman v. A.S. Abell Co., 44 Md.App. 193, 197, 407 A.2d 794, 797 (1979) (reviewing article and concluding that reasonable readers may have concluded the plaintiff was charged with a crime)......
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Batson v. Shiflett
...whether this single statement was defamatory, as a defamatory article must be considered in its entirety. See Hohman v. A.S. Abell Co., 44 Md.App. 193, 197, 407 A.2d 794 (1979). A jury could have disregarded that statement, yet still found other statements in Flyer No. 5 that implied that S......