Lluberes v. Uncommon Productions, LLC
| Decision Date | 16 August 2010 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 07-11623-DPW |
| Parties | Felipe Vicini LLUBERES and Juan Vicini Lluberes, Plaintiffs, v. UNCOMMON PRODUCTIONS, LLC, and William Haney Iii, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Benjamin G. Chew, Nigel Lance Wilkinson, Read K. McCaffrey, Stephen Diaz Gavin, Patton Boggs LLP, Washington,DC, Jessica Block, Block & Roos LLP, Boston, MA, for Plaintiffs.
Elizabeth C. Koch, John Bernard O'Keefe, Thomas Curley, Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz LLP, Washington, DC, Jonathan M. Albano, Lisa E. Kirby, Bingham McCutchen LLP, Boston, MA, for Defendants.
In 2007, a documentary titled The Price of Sugar was released and distributed by the Defendants, Uncommon Productions, LLC and William Haney III, chronicling the working conditions of Haitian laborers on sugarcane plantations in the Dominican Republic. The film refers by name to the Plaintiffs, Felipe and Juan Vicini Lluberes (collectively, the "Vicinis"), who are executives in a family business that owns and operates Dominican sugarcane plantations. In this diversity suit, the Vicinis allege that the film makes a series of defamatory statements about them and their sugar production operations. The Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment before me contends that the Vicinis, as limited purpose public figures, cannot demonstrate actual malice on the part of the Defendants.
The Price of Sugar includes footage of several large Dominican sugarcane plantations, as well as the villages where the workers reside, called bateyes. Much of the film follows the actions of Father Christopher Hartley, a Catholic priest working in the Dominican Republic who sought to improve working conditions in the bateyes and sugarcane plantations in his parish. The film depicts conditions of the workers as including little access to decent housing, adequate food, education, or sanitary water sources. Father Hartley and the film's narration specifically reference the Vicini plantations and the Vicini family at several points in the film.
The three individuals primarily responsible for the content of The Price of Sugar are Haney, Eric Grunebaum, and Peter Rhodes. Filming began in March 2004, and over the next two years, the filmmakers made eight trips to the Dominican Republic to shoot footage for the film. The Defendants began editing the film in 2005, with Rhodes doing most of the day-to-day editing of the film sequences. Grunebaum provided general feedback during the creative and editing process, while Haney had final authority on editorial decisions.
Because the film was developed over a period of time, and in the midst of changing circumstances, it did not have an established storyline, but rather followed Father Hartley in his work with the Haitian plantation workers. As the Defendants developed film sequences, they created footnoted scripts with sources for the facts presented in the film. The film was released on March 11, 2007.
The Plaintiffs allege that the film made seven defamatory statements about the Vicinis.
Statement 1: At approximately 23:28 in the film, Father Hartley makes this statement:
The Plaintiffs contend that this implies that the Vicinis kidnap people and/or murder them.
Statement 2: At 1:13:59 in the film, Jhonny Belizaire makes the following statement, as translated in the subtitles:
JHONNY BELIZAIRE: If they get Father Christopher out of the country I am not going to wait for the Vicini to send someone to kill me. I would kill myself. Anyone following Father Christopher's path is in great danger.
The implication, according to the Vicinis, is that the Vicinis will kill Belizaire after Father Hartley leaves the Dominican Republic.
Statement 3: The Narrator states the following at approximately 1:25:45:
NARRATOR: The batey is still a dangerous place. Jhonny has been fired. He and his family have been threatened with eviction from their home; but without legal status, they are unable to go elsewhere to make a living. And the attacks on Father Christopher continue.
The Vicinis suggest that the implication of the statement is that the Vicinis threatened Belizaire and his family and are imprisoning him because of his illegal status in the Dominican Republic.
Statement 4: The fourth statement is a recorded statement presented in conjunction with a series of images, appearing at approximately 2:33:
The statement is followed by a series of still images, four of which are highlighted by the Plaintiffs: (1) a boy sitting on a pile of sugarcane, holding a machete; (2) a boy cutting sugarcane, wearing no shirt; (3) a young child chewing on a piece of sugarcane, holding a syringe near his mouth; and (4) a pair of hands with a finger missing. The Plaintiffs allege that the film implies that these images were taken of workers and conditions on Vicini bateyes.
Statement 5: At 4:26 in the film, the following recorded statement is made by Father Hartley:
FATHER HARTLEY: Gradually, I began to learn more about their [people living on Vicini bateyes] situation. What I discovered was truly appalling.
This statement is followed by images from a barrack, such as a one-legged man and a woman with a scarred face. The Plaintiffs maintain that the statement, in conjunction with images on the screen, implies that the images depict conditions on Vicini-owned plantations, when in fact they were filmed at batey Paloma, not owned by the Vicinis.
Statement 6: The following statement appears at approximately 17:43:
FATHER HARTLEY: This is where they're going to put the workers when they arrive. Anywhere from 60 to 100 people are going to be crammed into this one barrack. You can see all this barbed wiring up on the top which is to prevent them from escaping at night and they will have armed men at the doors of the barracks in the night so they don't attempt to flee the barrack in the night.
The statement appears in conjunction with images on the screen, which the Plaintiffs allege implies that the Vicinis treat their laborers like prisoners, confine them to the plantations against their will, and will shoot or injure workers attempting to leave the plantations.
Statement 7: At 20:22 in the film, the Narrator makes the following statement:
NARRATOR: The batey dwellers get much of their calories from chewing sugarcane. Their diet often leads to malnutrition.
The image on the screen is of an emaciated child sitting in a dirty car seat on the ground. The Plaintiffs argue that the combination of the statement and the image implies that the latter depicts conditions on the Vicini plantations.
In August 2007, the Plaintiffs filed a Complaint in this Court, alleging fifty-three defamatory and false statements in The Price of Sugar. Early in the litigation, the Plaintiffs, having narrowed the scope of their claims to seven specific defamatory statements, brought a Motion for Partial Summary Judgment. I denied that motion as a premature effort to resolve the merits of what is inevitably a highly fact-bound inquiry. After the completion of discovery, the Defendants brought this second Motion for Summary Judgment now before me as to the seven statements.
A court awards summary judgment where "the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). "At summary judgment, the court's task is not to weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the matter but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial." Noonan v. Staples, Inc., 556 F.3d 20, 25 (1st Cir.2009) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Accordingly, I must view the record in the light most favorable to the Plaintiffs, drawing reasonable inferences in their favor. Id.
The Defendants' motion for summary judgment makes two arguments related to First Amendment limitations on defamation law: first, that the Plaintiffs are limited purpose public figures, thereby requiring a showing that the Defendants' statements were made with actual malice; and second, that no reasonable jury could conclude that the Defendants made the statements with actual malice.1
Given the limited scope of the Defendants' motion for summary judgment, the motion must be denied unless the Defendants establish that, as a matter of law, the Vicinis are public figures.
If a defamation plaintiff is a private individual, he must merely show thatthe defendant made the statement with negligence. Stone v. Essex County Newspapers, Inc., 367 Mass. 849, 330 N.E.2d 161, 168 n. 6 (1975). Plaintiffs who are public figures, however, must show that the statement was made with "actual malice," i.e., knowledge of the statement's falsity, or reckless disregard as to whether the statement was true or false. N.Y. Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 280, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964).
Defamation law recognizes two categories of public figures: general purpose public figures, who have "general fame or...
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