Jaillett v. Georgia Television Co.
Decision Date | 08 July 1999 |
Docket Number | No. A99A0102.,A99A0102. |
Citation | 520 S.E.2d 721,238 Ga. App. 885 |
Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Parties | JAILLETT v. GEORGIA TELEVISION COMPANY. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
David S. Walker, Jr., Lilburn, for appellant.
Dow, Lohnes & Albertson, James W. Kimmell, Jr., Peter C. Canfield, Sean R. Smith, Cynthia L. Counts, Atlanta, for appellee. RUFFIN, Judge.
Richard Jaillett d/b/a Ace & A Heating & Air Conditioning sued Georgia Television Company d/b/a WSB-TV (WSB), alleging that WSB made false and defamatory statements about Jaillett's air conditioning business during a television newscast. The trial court granted WSB's motion for summary judgment, and Jaillett appeals. We affirm.1
Stange v. Cox Enterprises, 211 Ga.App. 731, 732(1), 440 S.E.2d 503 (1994).
In the summer of 1993, David and Harriet Dillard called Ace & A after their air conditioner broke down. Rodney McKay, an Ace & A repairman, came to their house and, after inspecting the unit, told Mrs. Dillard that the fan was not working. After further inspecting the compressor, McKay told Mrs. Dillard that the entire air conditioning unit needed to be replaced, and that she would be wasting her money just to replace the fan. He gave her a written quote of $285 to replace the fan motor alone (less the $32.95 paid for the service call), and a separate quote of $1,225 to replace the entire unit. Mr. Dillard arranged for another company, Ace Fireplace, to provide a second opinion. The Ace Fireplace repairman determined that the unit's quick start capacitor had burned out and that several wires to the fan motor had burned. He successfully repaired the unit for $113.90 by replacing the capacitor and rewiring the burned wires. The air conditioner was still working properly two years later.
After unsuccessfully trying to obtain a refund of the service call charge from Ace & A, Mr. Dillard sent copies of his correspondence with Ace & A to the Better Business Bureau and to WSB's consumer affairs department. WSB's consumer action reporter, Patrick Crosby, contacted the Dillards to see if he could interview them for a consumer affairs report on air conditioning repairs. Crosby conducted on-camera interviews with both Mrs. Dillard and Jaillett for use in the report.
WSB then played a taped report, as follows:
The taped report then cut to the offices of another air conditioning company, Estes Heating & Air:
The segment then concluded with Estes and Crosby advising consumers with air conditioning problems to check their air filters, make sure that their units are actually turned on, and check to see if a circuit breaker is off.
(Citation and punctuation omitted.) Brewer v. Rogers, 211 Ga.App. 343, 347(2)(a), 439 S.E.2d 77 (1993). "[M]inor factual errors which do not go to the substance, the gist, the sting of [a] story" do not render a communication false for defamation purposes. (Punctuation omitted.) Stange, supra at 735, 440 S.E.2d 503. Jaillett contends that the broadcast was false and defamatory in three ways. First, he contends that the broadcast falsely represented that Ace & A told Mrs. Dillard she had to have a new unit. Second, he contends that the report falsely described Ace & A as a "one man" operation. Third, he contends that the broadcast was defamatory because Farmer and Mrs. Dillard used the term "rip off."
With respect to the first of these contentions, Jaillett points to the fact that the broadcast failed to mention that the Ace & A repairman, McKay, gave Mrs. Dillard a separate quote for replacing the fan motor, in addition to the quote for replacing the entire unit. However, this fact does not alter the truth of the gist of the story—i.e., that McKay incorrectly told Mrs. Dillard the entire unit needed to be replaced. Although McKay gave Mrs. Dillard a quote for replacing the fan motor, the evidence is uncontradicted that he told Mrs. Dillard the entire unit needed to be replaced and she would be wasting her money by fixing only the fan motor.2 It is also undisputed that the unit was in fact repaired for substantially less cost by another company, without having to replace the entire unit or the fan motor. Although the broadcast may not have told the "whole truth," the failure to mention the quote for replacing the fan motor alone did not render the broadcast substantially false. See Jim Walter Homes v. Strickland, 185 Ga.App. 306, 309(1), 363 S.E.2d 834 (1987) (). "As long as facts are not misstated, distorted or arranged so as to convey a false and defamatory meaning, there is no liability for a somewhat less than complete report of the truth." (Punctuation omitted.) Blomberg, supra 228 Ga.App. at 179(1), 491 S.E.2d 430.
Jaillett also contends that the broadcast falsely characterized Ace & A as a "one man operation." Pretermitting whether such a characterization is defamatory, it is clear that the phrase was not directed at Jaillett or his business. The phrase was not used until after the segment dealing with Ace & A had concluded, when Crosby began discussing what people should do if they experience air conditioning problems. At that point, Tommy Estes stated that "[t]here are an awful lot of one man operators around and they tend to promise you the world and not be able to perform." There is no indication that Estes was referring to Jaillett or Ace & A. Indeed, as Jaillett points out in his brief, Crosby had referred earlier in the broadcast to "the contractor's man from Ace & A Air Conditioning," indicating that Ace & A was not a one man operation, and Jaillett himself was shown stating that his repairman had made a mistake. Moreover, Estes' statement that one man operators "tend to promise you the world and not be able to perform" does not correspond to the complaint against Ace & A — i.e., that it failed to accurately diagnose the relatively simple problem with the Dillards' air conditioner. Thus, it is apparent that the reference to "one man operators," even if disparaging, was...
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