Langston v. Eagle Pub. Co.
| Decision Date | 04 September 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 10-85-214-CV,10-85-214-CV |
| Citation | 719 S.W.2d 612 |
| Parties | Ruble LANGSTON, Individually and as Trustee of the Three L Trust, et al, Appellants, v. EAGLE PUBLISHING COMPANY a/k/a Eagle Printing Company, et al, Appellees. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
This is a libel suit in which the plaintiffs appeal from a summary judgment that was entered in favor of the defendants. Appellants, who were the plaintiffs below, are: (1) Ruble Langston; (2) the Three L Trust, which sued through its trustee, Ruble Langston; (3) Trailite, Inc., a corporation which manufactured livestock trailers; and (4) Michael Luther, a shareholder and president of Trailite. 1 Defendants, now appellees, are the Eagle Publishing Company, which publishes the Bryan-College Station Eagle, publisher John Williams, editor Glenn Dromgoole and reporter Jann Snell.
The libel suit centers around eight newspaper articles published in the Bryan-College Station Eagle between June 21, 1981, and March 3, 1983. In these articles, Snell chronicled Trailite's dispute with the Internal Revenue Service over delinquent taxes, the proceedings relating to Trailite's Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the filing of a consumer-fraud suit by then Attorney General Mark White against Trailite and others, 2 the political charges that arose between the 1982 gubernatorial campaigns of Bill Clements and Mark White over the filing of the consumer-fraud suit, and the filing of the libel suit. The plaintiffs contend, in particular, that the articles published on July 21 and November 9, 1982, contained libelous statements because Snell had falsely and maliciously reported that the attorney general had alleged in the consumer-fraud suit that the Three L Trust had been "set up" or "used" as a "sham" to avoid "direct legal obligations to unhappy Trailite customers".
Several questions on appeal relate to individual plaintiffs. The defendants contend that they were entitled to a summary judgment against Luther because the articles did not defame him as a matter of law. They also argue that the summary judgment was properly entered against Trailite and Luther because their claims had been conclusively barred by limitation. Likewise, the defendants insist that the summary judgment against the Three L Trust was proper because a trust cannot bring a libel suit for its own defamation.
As far as the plaintiffs as a whole are concerned, the two sides differ over whether the defendants were protected as a matter of law by the privilege in article 5432. This statute provided, among other things, that a libel suit cannot be based on a fair, true and impartial account by a newspaper of judicial proceedings. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5432(1) (Vernon 1958) (repealed effective September 1, 1985, and now codified at Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 73.002 (Vernon 1986)). The plaintiffs argue that the attorney general's original pleading in the consumer-fraud suit was not a part of a "judicial proceeding" because the court had not taken any action on the pleading when the challenged articles were written. Furthermore, they insist that material fact issues existed in the summary-judgment evidence on malice, which destroys the conditional privilege under article 5432, and on whether the articles of July 21 and November 9, 1982, were a fair, true and impartial account of the attorney general's allegations relating to the Three L Trust. Other questions relate to the libel-proof doctrine and whether the summary-judgment evidence conclusively established that the plaintiffs' reputations could not have been damaged by the articles any more than they had already been damaged by the allegations in the consumer-fraud suit. The summary judgment will be affirmed against Trailite, the Three L Trust and Luther. However, the summary judgment against Langston will be reversed and his causes of action remanded for a trial.
The summary judgment will be reviewed under the rules in Nixon v. Mr. Property Management, 690 S.W.2d 546, 548-49 (Tex.1985). Under these rules, the movant has the burden of showing that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that he is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Id; Tex.R.Civ.P. 166-A(c). When deciding whether there is a material fact issue, evidence favorable to the non-movant must be taken as true. Nixon, 690 S.W.2d at 548-49. Likewise, every reasonable inference and doubt must be indulged and resolved in the non-movant's favor. Id. at 549. When a defendant has been granted a summary judgment, as here, the question on appeal is whether the summary-judgment proof establishes as a matter of law that there is no genuine issue of material fact on one or more of the essential elements of the plaintiff's cause of action. See Gibbs v. General Motors Corporation, 450 S.W.2d 827, 828 (Tex.1970).
The defendants moved for a summary judgment against Luther on the grounds that limitation had barred his claims and that the articles did not defame him as a matter of law. Because the court did not specify in the summary judgment the ground or grounds on which it was granted, Luther had to challenge each of these grounds on appeal or risk having the summary judgment summarily affirmed on the unchallenged grounds. See Sullivan v. University Interscholastic League, 616 S.W.2d 170, 173 (Tex.1981). He did not brief or attack either ground by a point of error, and therefore the summary judgment against him is affirmed on both of the unchallenged grounds. See id.
The defendants also moved for a summary judgment against Trailite on the ground that its libel claims were conclusively barred by limitation. Trailite attacks this ground in the sixth point of error. A libel action is barred unless it is brought within one year after the date that it accrues. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5524 (Vernon 1958) (repealed effective September 1, 1985, and now codified at Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 16.002 (Vernon 1986)). Ordinarily, an action for libel accrues on the date that the defamatory matter is published and not from the date of its damaging consequences. Moore & Associates v. Metropolitan Life Ins., 604 S.W.2d 487, 491 (Tex.Civ.App.--Dallas, no Writ). However, the "discovery rule" is applicable to libel actions. Kelley v. Rinkle, 532 S.W.2d 947, 949 (Tex.1976). Under this rule, a statute of limitation does not begin to run until the injured party learns of or, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, should have learned of the injury or wrong giving rise to the action. Id. The discovery rule is not applicable in this instance because the allegedly defamatory matter was communicated through a mass medium. See id. Because the defendants had moved for a summary judgment, they had the burden of showing that Trailite's claims were barred by limitation as a matter of law. See Delgado v. Burns, 656 S.W.2d 428, 429 (Tex.1983).
A brief synopsis of the events is in order before the limitation question can be decided. Langston, acting individually and as the trustee of the Three L Trust, originally filed the libel suit against the defendants on February 28, 1983. He alleged in the original petition that the two articles, dated July 21 and November 9, 1982, had libeled him and the trust because Snell had falsely and maliciously reported that the attorney general had alleged in the consumer-fraud suit that the trust had been set up and used as a sham to avoid direct legal obligations to unhappy Trailite customers. Langston attached a copy of both articles to the original petition.
On July 18, 1983, in a first amended original petition, Langston and Luther purportedly instituted a derivative libel action against the defendants on behalf of Trailite and its shareholders under article 5.14 of the Texas Business Corporation Act. See Tex.Bus.Corp.Act Ann. art. 5.14 (Vernon 1980). Langston alleged that he was a shareholder of Trailite in his capacity as the trustee of the Three L Trust, and Luther also alleged that he was one of Trailite's shareholders. The first amended original petition contained essentially the same complaints about the articles of July 21 and November 9, 1982, as the original petition. However, as the derivative plaintiffs, Langston and Luther also asserted that Trailite had been libeled by these two articles, as well as by two other articles published on October 14, 1982, and March 2, 1983. The October 14 article reported the dispute which developed between the political campaigns of Bill Clements and Mark White over the filing of the consumer-fraud suit. The headline of the March 2 article erroneously stated that Trailite had filed the libel suit against the defendants, while the body of the article correctly reported that the suit had been filed by Langston on behalf of himself and the Three L Trust. However, the plaintiffs did not specify how Trailite had been defamed by the four articles, which were attached as exhibits to the first amended original petition.
By a second amended original petition, filed on January 26, 1984, Trailite and Luther joined the libel suit as plaintiffs in their own right, and the plaintiffs recited in the pleading that the derivative suit, which Langston and Luther had purportedly filed on behalf of Trailite and its shareholders, was "discontinued". Langston remained in the suit as a plaintiff in his own right and as the trustee of the Three L Trust. The second amended original petition, to which the plaintiffs attached the four articles dated July 21, October 14 and November 9, 1982, and March 2, 1983, contained essentially the same allegations as the first amended original petition. The plaintiffs still did not allege how Trailite had been defamed by the...
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