In re Inc.

• Decision Date: 21 February 2012
• Docket Number: No. 49A02–1103–PL–234.,49A02–1103–PL–234.
• Citation: 963 N.E.2d 534,40 Media L. Rep. 1353
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court
• Parties: IN RE INDIANA NEWSPAPERS INC., d/b/a the Indianapolis Star, Appellant–Non–Party,Jeffrey M. Miller & Cynthia S. Miller, Appellees–Plaintiffs, v. Junior Achievement of Central Indiana, Inc.; Jennifer Burk, Individually and in her Official Capacity; Central Indiana Community Foundation, Inc.; Brian Payne, Individually and in his Official Capacity, Appellees–Defendants.

40 Media L. Rep. 1353

963 N.E.2d 534

IN RE INDIANA NEWSPAPERS INC., d/b/a the Indianapolis Star, Appellant–Non–Party,Jeffrey M. Miller & Cynthia S. Miller, Appellees–Plaintiffs,

v.Junior Achievement of Central Indiana, Inc.; Jennifer Burk, Individually and in her Official Capacity; Central Indiana Community Foundation, Inc.; Brian Payne, Individually and in his Official Capacity, Appellees–Defendants.

No. 49A02–1103–PL–234.

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

Feb. 21, 2012.

Jan M. Carroll, Paul L. Jefferson, Barnes & Thornburg LLP, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellant Non–Party Indiana Newspapers, INC. d/b/a The Indianapolis Star.

Charles D. Tobin, Holland & Knight LLP, Washington, D.C., Steven C. Shockley, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Amici Curiae Lee Enterprises, Inc., et al.

Paul Alan Levy, Public Citizen Litigation Group, Washington, D.C., Steven M. Badger, Bose McKinney & Evans LLP, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Amicus Curiae Public Citizen, Inc.Kevin W. Betz, Jamie A. Maddox, Betz & Blevins, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellees Jeffrey M. Miller and Cynthia S. Miller.

OPINION

VAIDIK, Judge.

Case Summary

In keeping up with the proliferation of the internet and social media, news organizations allow readers to both read and comment on their stories online. While this practice facilitates discourse between readers and interaction with their online news products, it also opens the door to potentially objectionable material, as readers are allowed to post comments anonymously, hiding behind a pseudonym. This case addresses whether a non-party news organization can be compelled to disclose to a plaintiff who has filed a defamation lawsuit the identity of one such anonymous commenter. In order to analyze this issue of first impression in our state, we consider Indiana's Shield Law, which provides an absolute privilege to the news media not to disclose the source of any information obtained in the course of employment, the First Amendment, which has a celebrated history of vigorously protecting anonymous speech, and the Indiana Constitution, which more jealously protects freedom of speech guarantees than the United States Constitution.

Under our Shield Law, we hold that an anonymous person who comments on an already-published online story and whose comment was not used by the news organization in carrying out its newsgathering and reporting function cannot be considered “the source of any information procured or obtained in the course of the person's employment or representation of a newspaper” according to Indiana Code section 34–46–4–2. Under the United States Constitution, to strike a balance between protecting anonymous speech and preventing defamatory speech, we adopt a modified version of the Dendrite test, requiring the plaintiff to produce prima facie evidence of every element of his defamation claim that does not depend on the commenter's identity before the news organization is compelled to disclose that identity. With this test being called the most speech-protective standard that has been articulated and neither party advocating a different test, we adopt the modified version of the Dendrite test under the Indiana Constitution as well.

Facts and Procedural History

Jeffrey Miller was president and CEO of Junior Achievement of Central Indiana, Inc. from September 1994 until his retirement on December 31, 2008. Jennifer Burk replaced Miller as President and CEO of Junior Achievement. After his retirement from Junior Achievement, Miller continued in his role as president of the Experiential Learning and Entrepreneurship Foundation (“the Foundation”), an organization that supported Junior Achievement, until February 2010.

In May 2008, during Miller's tenure as president, a three-way collaborative project was announced between the Foundation, Junior Achievement, and Ivy Tech Community College for the Foundation to construct a $4 million culinary school on the Junior Achievement campus to be financed in part by a $2 million grant from the Central Indiana Community Foundation/Eugene Glick family (“The Glick Fund”). Brian Payne is president of Central Indiana Community Foundation. As a result of this collaboration, Ivy Tech would lease the culinary school from the Foundation once the school was fully constructed and furnished with the latest culinary equipment.

Construction began in August 2009 but was suspended in January 2010 because The Glick Fund stopped paying for the invoices submitted by the Foundation even though there was sufficient money in the fund. Miller claims that the funding stopped because Burk and Payne made allegations that he somehow misappropriated the funds that had already been distributed. Specifically, Miller alleges that Burk made the following defamatory statements:

(1) On October 22, 2009, Burk stated during a Junior Achievement Executive Committee meeting that Miller had been “very dishonest” about funds she believed should be available to Junior Achievement.

(2) In the fall of 2009, Burk told Sharon Lents, the former Junior Achievement Chief Operating Officer, that “Jeff Miller's House of Cards is about to fall down.”

(3) In March 2010, Burk stated that she was distancing Junior Achievement from Miller and the Foundation, which implies that Miller had misappropriated the funds.

Appellant's App. p. 28. As for Payne, Miller alleges that in early 2010, he was in discussions with individuals in Mayor of Indianapolis Greg Ballard's office regarding the position of Senior Policy Advisor. Miller alleges that a job announcement was scheduled for the end of February when Payne told Mayor Ballard's Chief of Staff that Miller had misappropriated funds and there were concerns regarding Miller and the way money from The Glick Fund was inappropriately moved around at Junior Achievement and the Foundation. Mayor Ballard's Chief of Staff withdrew Miller's employment offer. Miller claims that Burk's and Payne's statements are false.

After Burk and Payne allegedly made these defamatory statements, The Indianapolis Star (“The Star”) published an online news article on March 19, 2010, entitled “Junior Achievement faces questions, audit.” Id. at 64. The article stated that Junior Achievement was “facing a series of questions about its own financial affairs—questions about missed payments to contractors on a building project and unaccounted-for grant money.” Id. The article also stated that Payne said The Glick Fund had “halted payment” and those payments “won't resume ... until an independent auditor can sort out what's become of the $765,000 in grant payments that Junior Achievement has already received.” Id.

On April 6, 2010,¹ an anonymous commenter using the pseudonym “DownWithTheColts” posted the following comment about the story on indystar.com:

This is not JA's responsibility. They need to look at the FORMER president of JA and others on the [Foundation] board. The “missing” money can be found in their bank accounts.Id. at 66. The Star concedes that there is no evidence in the record that it used this comment in any way, such as to pursue the lead for a follow-up story.

That “DownWithTheColts” commented on an online news article has become commonplace today. “As news organizations have experimented with ways to encourage their readers to interact with their online news products, one of the most popular options has been to allow readers to post comments adjacent to a story.” Jane E. Kirtley, Mask, Shield, and Sword: Should the Journalist's Privilege Protect the Identity of Anonymous Posters to News Media Websites?, 94 Minn. L.Rev. 1478, 1488 (2010). Although this can facilitate robust discussion and promote a “conversation” between journalists and their readers, it has also encouraged “moronic, anonymous, unsubstantiated and often venomous [speech].” Id. at 1488–89 (quotation omitted). “This is particularly likely to occur when posters are permitted to use a pseudonym, or remain anonymous.” Id. at 1489; see also Ashley I. Kissinger & Katharine Larsen, Protections for Anonymous Online Speech, 1068 PLI/Pat 815, 822 (Nov.2011) (“Millions of people communicate on the Internet every day. They choose a login name other than their own to post comments on websites or in other fora, they share files without sharing their names, and they avoid providing any personal information when registering for email addresses and blogs.... As the number of so-called ‘anonymous' users of the Internet has continued to rise, so have efforts to ‘unmask’ them.”). As shown below, a common compromise is to require users to register with the website, provide some form of identifying information, and agree to abide by the news organization's Terms of Service and/or Privacy Policy. Kirtley, 94 Minn. L.Rev. at 1489.

Before the comment by “DownWithTheColts,” the editor of The Star, Dennis Ryerson, announced that his newspaper would begin requiring commenter registration and take other steps, such as segregating comments from stories, in response to reader complaints about offensive rants. Jason A. Martin, Mark R. Caramanica & Anthony L. Fargo, Anonymous Speakers and Confidential Sources: Using Shield Laws When They Overlap Online, 16 Comm. L. & Pol'y 89, 90 (Winter 2011) (citing Dennis Ryerson, Story Comments Welcome—If Tone is Civil, The Indianapolis Star, Jan. 10, 2010, at B7).² Then, while this case was on appeal, Ryerson announced yet a new change for his paper, connecting posts to a commenter's Facebook identity: ³

For several years we have allowed users of IndyStar.com, our main news website, to provide their comments with stories we post. Our intent was to use the Internet to provide immediate reader comment as stories were breaking.

Unlike our signature requirements for letters to the editor, we have allowed anonymous comments on IndyStar.com. Our theory was that robust conversation would promote more conversation and that we should not restrict the openness of...