King v. S. Poverty Law Ctr.

• Decision Date: 29 March 2022
• Docket Number: CIVIL 2:20-cv-120-ECM (WO)
• Parties: DONALD A. KING, et al., Plaintiffs, v. SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama

DONALD A. KING, et al., Plaintiffs,
v.
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER, INC., Defendant.

CIVIL No. 2:20-cv-120-ECM (WO)

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division

March 29, 2022

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

EMILY C. MARKS CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

I. INTRODUCTION

Each year, the Defendant Southern Poverty Law Center (“SPLC”) publishes several reports. One, the Intelligence Report, names “hate groups” that SPLC has identified. A second, the Hate Map, presents the information from the Intelligence Report in a visual format, making clear how many “hate groups” SPLC believes operates in each U.S. state.

In 2018, the Intelligence Report and Hate Map identified-for the first time-the Plaintiff The Dustin Inman Society, Inc. (“DIS”) as an “anti-immigrant hate group.” The 2019 and 2020 reports did the same. As justification for its designation, SPLC listed (among other things) myriad statements made by DIS's founder, Defendant Donald A. King (“King”), which SPLC believed disparaging to all immigrants. King and DIS jointly sued in state court, accusing SPLC of defamation.

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SPLC subsequently removed the case to this Court and moved to dismiss, arguing that the Plaintiffs failed to state a claim because any designation it assigns is unactionable opinion, or, in the alternative, because the Plaintiffs failed to adequately plead that SPLC published the statements with “actual malice.” Because the Court agrees that the Plaintiffs failed to adequately plead that SPLC acted with actual malice, SPLC's motion is due to be GRANTED.

II. JURISDICTION

The Court here exercises subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332: the parties are completely diverse and the amount in controversy exceeds the statutory requirement of $75, 000. Personal jurisdiction and venue are uncontested.

III. BACKGROUND

In 2005, King (a resident of Georgia) chartered DIS, a nonprofit organization in Georgia “dedicated to promot[ing] the enforcement of immigration laws in the United States.” (Doc. 3, para. 11). Since then, King has been the organization's face, lobbying for immigration enforcement bills on its behalf before the Georgia State Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as giving speeches and writing articles advocating for the enforcement of immigration laws.

SPLC, a nonprofit in Alabama, identifies and monitors organizations it deems “hate groups.” To that effect, SPLC publishes an annual “Intelligence Report” and “Hate Map” each spring, opining on the “hate groups” it has identified. SPLC defines a hate group as a group that has “beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people,

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typically for their immutable characteristics.” (Doc. 10-4 at 2).^[1]SPLC also parses hate groups more granularly, classifying them by what it is the group seems to hate or by what motivates it. Of relevance here, SPLC identifies anti-immigrant hate groups, which it defines as a hate group that is

the most extreme of the hundreds of nativist groups that have proliferated since the late 1990s, when anti-immigration xenophobia began to rise to levels not seen in the United States since the 1920s. Most white hate groups are also anti-immigrant, but anti-immigrant hate groups target only that [population, ] usually arguing that immigrants are unable to assimilate, have a lower intellectual capacity than white people, bring disease or are inherently more criminal Although many groups legitimately criticize American immigration policies, anti-immigrant hate groups go much further by pushing racist propaganda and ideas about non-white immigrants

(Doc. 3, para. 18).

Separate from its work in preparing Intelligence Reports and Hate Maps, SPLC also registered its own lobbyists in Georgia in March, 2018, to begin work against a pro-immigration enforcement bill. Shortly thereafter, SPLC issued its 2018 Intelligence Report and Hate Map, identifying DIS, who supports pro-immigration enforcement bills, as an “anti-immigrant hate group.” SPLC also stated that DIS “poses as an organization

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concerned about immigration issues, yet focuses on vilifying all immigrants.” (Id., para. 25). SPLC's next two reports made the same accusations.^[2]

DIS and King did not take kindly to SPLC's designation. After a demanded retraction from King and DIS went unanswered, the Plaintiffs filed suit in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Alabama, which SPLC then removed to this Court.^[3] The Plaintiffs responded with an amended complaint, and SPLC moved to dismiss a few weeks later. The Court turns now to SPLC's motion.

IV. DISCUSSION

When evaluating a motion to dismiss pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), the Court must take all facts alleged in the complaint as true and “construe them in the light most

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favorable to [the plaintiff].” Resnick v. AvMed, Inc., 693 F.3d 1317, 1321-22 (11th Cir. 2012) (citation omitted). To survive the motion, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). While a court must take factual assertions as true, it does not have to take as true legal conclusions that lack further factual support. Id. Nor is it required to take as true “legal conclusion[s] couched as . . . factual allegation.” Id. (quotations and citation omitted). “Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief [is] . . . a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense.” Id. at 679. The plausibility standard requires “more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. at 678. Conclusory allegations that are merely “conceivable” and fail to rise “above the speculative level” are insufficient to meet the plausibility standard. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 570. This pleading standard “does not require ‘detailed factual allegations,' but it demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Indeed, “[a] pleading that offers ‘labels and conclusions' or ‘a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.'” Id.

Against that backdrop, the Court turns to the matter at hand. Each Plaintiff asserts two counts of defamation against SPLC. In Counts I and II, DIS alleges that SPLC defamed it by calling it a “hate group” and an “anti-immigrant hate group.” (Doc. 3, paras. 26-35). In Counts III and IV, King alleges that he was defamed when the Defendant claimed that he leads an “anti-immigrant hate group” that focuses on vilifying all immigrants. (Id.,

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paras. 36-45). To right these alleged wrongs, the Plaintiffs seek compensatory and punitive damages, as well as permanent injunctive relief.

To state a claim for defamation under Georgia law, the Plaintiffs must establish “(1) a false and defamatory statement concerning the [Plaintiffs]; (2) an unprivileged communication to a third party; (3) fault by the defendant amounting at least to negligence; and (4) special harm or the actionability of the statement irrespective of special harm.” Mathis v. Cannon, 573 S.E.2d 376, 380 (Ga. 2002) (quotations and citation omitted).^[4]However, “[w]hen applying state defamation law to public figures, the First Amendment imposes additional limitations.” Coral Ridge Ministries Media, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 6 F.4th 1247, 1252 (11th Cir. 2021) (footnote omitted). Because the Plaintiffs concede they are public figures, the First Amendment requires that they demonstrate that (1) the challenged statements are “sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proved true or false, ” Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 21 (1990); (2) the statements are false, id. at 16; and (3) that SPLC made the statements with “actual malice.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 280 (1964). To demonstrate that the statements were made with actual malice, the Plaintiffs must plead sufficient factual allegations “to give rise to a

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reasonable inference the false statement was made ‘with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.'” Michel v. NYP Holdings, Inc., 816 F.3d 686, 703 (11th Cir. 2016) (quoting Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 280). The test is subjective: the Court “ask[s] whether the defendant, instead of acting in good faith, actually entertained serious doubts as to the veracity of the published account, or was highly aware that the account was probably false.” Id. (emphasis added) (citations omitted).

SPLC argues that if its designation of DIS^[5] as a “hate group” is both susceptible to proof as false, as well as actually false, the Plaintiffs have nevertheless failed to allege facts sufficient to...