Lyons v. New Mass Media, Inc.

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Writing for the Court: Before HENNESSEY; LYNCH
• Citation: Lyons v. New Mass Media, Inc., 390 Mass. 51, 453 N.E.2d 451 (Mass. 1983)
• Decision Date: 30 August 1983
• Parties: Kenneth T. LYONS et al. v. NEW MASS MEDIA, INC. et al.

Page 451

453 N.E.2d 451

390 Mass. 51

Kenneth T. LYONS et al. v. NEW MASS MEDIA, INC. et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Suffolk.

Argued May 5, 1983.

Decided Aug. 30, 1983.

Robert H. Goldman, Lowell (Roberta A. Schreiber, Lowell, with him), for plaintiffs.

Stephen H. Oleskey, Boston (Christina L. Harms, Boston, with him), for defendants.

Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and LIACOS, NOLAN, LYNCH and O'CONNOR, JJ.

LYNCH, Justice.

This defamation case has as its genesis an article published during the summer of 1978 by the defendant New Mass Media, Inc. (New Mass Media), during a heated campaign between two unions seeking election as bargaining agent for municipal employees in Springfield. The plaintiffs Kenneth T. Lyons, Ralph L. Atkins, and the National Association of Government Employees, Inc. (NAGE), seek redress for certain allegedly defamatory statements reported in the weekly newspaper, Valley Advocate, owned by New Mass Media. The article in dispute, entitled "Springfield Union Election Stirs Controversy," was written by the defendant Harvy Lipman, a reporter for the newspaper.

After discovery was completed, the defendants, New Mass Media and Lipman, filed a motion for summary judgment on all counts pursuant to Mass.R.Civ.P. 56, 365 Mass. 824 (1974). A judge of the Superior Court allowed the motion as to Lyons and to NAGE but denied it as to Atkins. Lyons and NAGE appealed from the entry of summary judgment against them. New Mass Media and Lipman filed a motion with the judge to report the denial of the summary judgment motion as to Atkins. This motion to report was allowed and the report was consolidated with the plaintiffs' appeals. Subsequently, the defendants filed an application for direct appellate review which we granted. We now reverse the entry of summary judgment against Lyons and NAGE, affirm the denial of summary judgment as to Atkins, and remand the case for trial.

From the record and the exhibits presented below, the facts considered in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, Hub Assocs., Inc. v. Goode, 357 Mass. 449, 451, 258 N.E.2d 733 (1970), are as follows. In January, 1978, after the collective bargaining agreement between the city of Springfield and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) terminated, NAGE petitioned to be certified as the exclusive collective bargaining representative for certain units of Springfield's municipal employees. NAGE, a nonprofit Delaware corporation, is a labor union. Lyons is the national president of NAGE. Atkins is an attorney who was retained by NAGE to provide certain legal services for members of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers (IBPO), a division of NAGE, in western Massachusetts.

The State Labor Relations Commission designated September 14, 1978, as the date for the representation election. Mark D'Aguanno, a national vice president of NAGE, coordinated the union's Springfield campaign activities. D'Aguanno kept Lyons informed as to the progress of the campaign. In his deposition, Lipman testified that shortly before the election, James Bollen, a field communicator for AFSCME, talked to him. Lipman testified that Bollen informed him of the prospective union election between NAGE and AFSCME. Bollen made certain claims about NAGE and told Lipman to contact Norman Nardi. Bollen told Lipman that Nardi was an Agawam policeman who had been involved in the town's chapter of IBPO and that Nardi would provide information about that chapter's dissatisfaction with NAGE. ¹

Lipman testified that he subsequently telephoned Nardi. A substantial portion of the newspaper article which is at issue here related to several charges made by Nardi during this interview. As reported by Lipman, Nardi's comments were extremely censorious of NAGE, Lyons, and Atkins. Lipman wrote that Nardi alleged that NAGE was "nothing more than a family business posing as a union" and that "the national president, Kenneth Lyons, owns the business. [He] ... hires and fires national officers and ... has family members on the payroll." Lipman also reported that "Nardi suspects that union attorneys were passing confidential information to city officials" and specifically accused Atkins of violating union confidences. Lipman wrote that the Agawam police were suing NAGE for their back dues as a result of the alleged failure of the union's attorneys to represent its members on grievances against the town.

Lipman further testified that after his conversation with Nardi, he attempted to reach both Lyons and Atkins by telephone but was unsuccessful in each attempt. After these initial efforts, Lipman made no further attempts to speak to Atkins or Lyons, although he realized that the charges against Atkins were serious. Lipman did speak with D'Aguanno. In his affidavit, D'Aguanno stated that he told Lipman that Nardi's charges were false. Lipman's article recounting these conversations and the controversy appeared in the September 11, 1978, issue of Valley Advocate which was available at newstands.

1. The first issue which we must address is the proper legal status of Lyons and Atkins for the purpose of this defamation suit. ² In their motion for summary judgment, the defendants alleged that both Atkins and Lyons were public figures, as defined by the United States Supreme Court in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 351, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 3012, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974), and that, as such, to prevail in this suit the plaintiffs must demonstrate that the article was published with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard whether it was false or not. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279-280, 84 S.Ct. 710, 725-726, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964). See Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 162, 87 S.Ct. 1975, 1995, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967) (extending the New York Times standard to defamatory criticism of public figures). In his decision granting summary judgment against Lyons the judge concluded that Lyons "is a public figure for the range of issues involved in this case." Although the judge did not make an explicit finding about Atkins' status, it is a fair inference that in denying the summary judgment motion as to Atkins he determined that Atkins was not a public figure.

We have previously stated that in a case tried to a jury, the question whether a plaintiff is a public figure "is a question for the jury to answer after instructions by the judge on the applicable law and on what facts must be found to constitute the plaintiff ... a public figure," unless "the facts bearing thereon are uncontested or agreed by the parties." Stone v. Essex County Newspapers, Inc., 367 Mass. 849, 862-863, 330 N.E.2d 161 (1975). Clearly the parties here do not agree on the essential facts and it would appear that a jury question is presented. However, the defendants in their motion for summary judgment contend that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact, and that they are entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Community Nat'l Bank v. Dawes, 369 Mass. 550, 553-554, 340 N.E.2d 877 (1976). Under this standard, the defendants' motion must necessarily fail if they do not "establish the absence of a genuine issue of material fact" or if the opposing party "establish[es] that there is a genuine, triable issue." Id. at 554, 340 N.E.2d 877. Hub Assocs., Inc. v. Goode, 357 Mass. 449, 451, 258 N.E.2d 733 (1970). We therefore consider whether there is a genuine issue of material fact as to the public figure status of Atkins and Lyons.

The United States Supreme Court set forth the standards for determining whether an individual is a public or a private figure in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 345, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 3009, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974). In Gertz, the Court distinguished between two classes of public figures: those people deemed public figures for all purposes and those who become public figures "for a limited range of issues." Id. at 351, 94 S.Ct. at 3013. The defendants do not claim that either Atkins or Lyons is an all-purpose public figure but rather urge that they are public figures for the issues presented in this case. To be considered a limited public figure an individual must have voluntarily injected himself into a particular public controversy in an attempt to influence its outcome. Gertz, supra at 351-352, 94 S.Ct. at 3012-3013. Determining whether these conditions exist necessitates "looking to the nature and extent of an individual's participation in the particular controversy giving rise to the defamation." Id. at 352, 94 S.Ct. at 3013.

The defendants urge that Atkins' involvement in the NAGE union activities satisfies the requirements of Gertz. They assert that Atkins has actively solicited appearances in the media, with full knowledge that his statements would subject him to public scrutiny, and that, consequently, Atkins himself became an issue in the election campaign. The plaintiffs respond that Atkins' role in the election campaign was minimal and that he had ceased active representation of members of the IBPO in 1977. We conclude from these conflicting contentions that a genuine issue of material fact has been presented and that the motion for summary judgment against Atkins, to the extent that it was based on this issue, was properly denied.

The question of Lyons' public figure status is more problematic. However, we conclude that for the purpose of evaluating a motion for summary judgment the same result must follow. The defendants argue that Lyons, as president of NAGE, which is concededly a public figure, is necessarily a public figure for all disputes involving the union. They also assert that the fact that Lyons was president of NAGE became an issue in the campaign. The plaintiffs dispute the defendants' assertion that NAGE's public figure status must necessarily be imputed to Lyons. They note that Lyons is not involved directly in every union election campaign and t...