Holy Spirit Ass'n for Unification of World Christianity v. New York Times Co.

• Decision Date: 19 December 1979
• Citation: 424 N.Y.S.2d 165,49 N.Y.2d 63,399 N.E.2d 1185
• Parties: , 399 N.E.2d 1185, 5 Media L. Rep. 2219 HOLY SPIRIT ASSOCIATION FOR the UNIFICATION OF WORLD CHRISTIANITY, Also Known as the Unification Church, Appellant, v. NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY, Respondent.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 165

424 N.Y.S.2d 165

49 N.Y.2d 63, 399 N.E.2d 1185, 5

Media L. Rep. 2219

HOLY SPIRIT ASSOCIATION FOR the UNIFICATION OF WORLD CHRISTIANITY, Also Known as the Unification Church, Appellant, v. NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY, Respondent.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Dec. 19, 1979.

Thomas Fitzpatrick, New York City, for appellant

Loretta A. Preska and Floyd Abrams, New York City, for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

JASEN, Judge.

In this libel action, plaintiff Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (the Unification Church) seeks to recover 45 million dollars in damages from defendant New York Times Company due to the publication by defendant of three articles referring to intelligence documents released by the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on International Organizations concerning its investigation of Korean-American affairs.

Defendant moved for summary judgment on the ground that the allegedly libelous articles are fair and true reports of legislative or other official proceedings and, as such, are privileged under section 74 of the Civil Rights Law. Special Term granted the motion and the Appellate Division, one Justice dissenting, affirmed. There should be an affirmance.

At the outset, it should be stressed that plaintiff is not now contending that the articles are "untrue" in the sense that they contain misquoted material. Rather, the gravamen of plaintiff's allegations is that these articles, by failing to characterize property the nature of the intelligence reports, distorted the import of these documents to the detriment of plaintiff. ^*

The intelligence documents released by the subcommittee were written by unidentified authors and contained information related to them by an unidentified source. Although the earliest document, written in 1963, noted that it embodied unevaluated information, the others contained so such notation, although it appears that the same individual was used as the common source for all the intelligence reports. The unverified information claimed to be offensive to plaintiff indicated that the Unification Church was organized for use as a political tool by one Kim Chong-Pil while he acted as director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (K.C.I.A.).

The newspaper article upon which plaintiff's second cause of action is predicated concerned the guilty plea entered by former Representative Richard Hanna to charges related to the widely publicized South Korean influence-buying scandal. This article, published on March 19, 1978, contained the following language: "Increasingly, it appears that despite a number of inquiries under way in courtrooms and on Capitol Hill, investigators may have to settle for confirming old suspicions about the Koreans rather than breaking new ground. Last week, for example, a subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee released intelligence reports which, while interesting simply stated as fact what many Americans already believe that the Unification Church of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon was a Korean Government operation." Plaintiff challenges the fairness of characterizing these unverified reports as one of "fact", and claims that the language was calculated to "hold the plaintiff up to public scorn, hatred and ridicule".

After the release of this article and a prior article published by defendant which recounted the substance of the intelligence reports linking plaintiff to Korean influences, members of the Unification Church picketed the offices of defendant. This demonstration gave rise to the article published by defendant on March 21, 1978 the article upon which plaintiff predicates its third cause of action. This article stated in part: "Neil A. Salonen, president of the church in the United States, denounced the document, written in 1963, as 'clearly labeled as "unevaluated" and "appraisal of contents tentative. " ' The document to which Mr. Salonen referred in his statement was so labeled, but at least two subsequent intelligence reports released at the same time by the House subcommittee on international organizations confirmed and elaborated on the links between the church and the K.C.I.A. 'tentatively' noted in the first intelligence report. The two subsequent documents had no qualifications.'' Plaintiff alleges, in essence,...