Mahoney v. Adirondack Pub. Co.

• Decision Date: 17 December 1987
• Parties: , 517 N.E.2d 1365, 44 Ed. Law Rep. 557, 14 Media L. Rep. 2200 Jeremiah MAHONEY, Respondent-Appellant, v. ADIRONDACK PUBLISHING CO., Doing Business as Adirondack Daily Enterprise, et al., Appellants-Respondents.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 480

523 N.Y.S.2d 480

71 N.Y.2d 31, 517 N.E.2d 1365, 44 Ed.

Law Rep. 557,

14 Media L. Rep. 2200

Jeremiah MAHONEY, Respondent-Appellant, v. ADIRONDACK PUBLISHING CO., Doing Business as Adirondack

Daily Enterprise, et al., Appellants-Respondents.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Dec. 17, 1987.

C. David Morrison and Herbert G. Underwood, Clarksburg, W.Va., of the West Virginia Bar, admitted pro hac vice, and Henry A. Fischer, Malone, for appellants-respondents.

David R. Murphy, Troy, for respondent-appellant.

S. Paul Battaglia, Syracuse, for the New York Press Ass'n and others, amici curiae.

OPINION OF THE COURT

WACHTLER, Chief Judge.

Thomas Bengston, the defendant in this libel action, is a newspaper reporter and the author of an article which appeared in the sports section of the October 3, 1983 edition of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, a newspaper published by defendant Adirondack Publishing Company. The article was critical of the conduct of plaintiff Jeremiah Mahoney, a high school football coach, during a football game between Mahoney's St. Lawrence Central High School team and a team from Tupper Lake. Mahoney commenced this libel action against Bengston and the newspaper publisher, claiming that portions of the article were false and that their publication harmed his reputation as a coach and educator. After a jury trial, during which he conceded that he was a public figure, Mahoney was awarded compensatory and punitive damages. The Appellate Division affirmed the ensuing judgment insofar as it awarded compensatory damages, but struck the award of punitive damages (123 A.D.2d 10, 509 N.Y.S.2d 193). We granted defendants' motion and plaintiff's cross motion for leave to appeal (69 N.Y.2d 609, 509 N.E.2d 360) to determine whether the Appellate Division erred in either respect.

The dispositive issue is whether plaintiff proved by clear and convincing evidence that the defendants published the false portions of the article with "actual malice"--that is, knowing they were false or subjectively entertaining serious doubt as to their truth (see, Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union, 466 U.S. 485, 511, n. 30, 104 S.Ct. 1949, 1965 n. 30, 80 L.Ed.2d 502; St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U.S. 727, 731, 88 S.Ct. 1323, 1325, 20 L.Ed.2d 262; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 280, 84 S.Ct. 710, 726, 11 L.Ed.2d 686). ¹ We conclude that plaintiff did not meet this burden of proof. The complaint should, therefore, be dismissed, and the Appellate Division order, insofar as appealed from by defendants, should be reversed. Plaintiff's cross appeal, challenging the Appellate Division's vacatur of punitive damages, is thus academic and must be dismissed.

The football game described in the article took place on Saturday, October 1, 1983, at the Tupper Lake High School field. Both teams were winless going into the game, but the Tupper Lake Lumberjacks emerged with a 31-7 victory. Defendant Bengston, a reporter and the sports editor for the Daily Enterprise, observed the game from the stands behind the St. Lawrence team's bench. He sat in the top row of the stands, near midfield, approximately 30 feet from the bench. After the game he prepared the story which became the subject of this action.

The article appeared in the Monday edition of the paper. In addition to describing the contest on the field, Bengston reported extensively on the St. Lawrence coach's actions along the sidelines and in his team's locker room after the game. Bengston reported that, although the St. Lawrence team lost the game on the field, "Larries coach Jerry Mahoney showed himself to be the big loser." According to the article, Mahoney "cursed and belittled his players from the sidelines throughout the game" and "screamed at his players so loudly in the locker room after the game that he easily could be heard by embarrassed fans outside the school building." The "verbal abuse" directed at the players was reportedly mixed with profanities, and the events, according to Bengston, offered "a dark glimpse of high school football coaching." The story also contained the following passage which, as the trial developed, became the focal point of the action: "Larries quarterback Kevin Hartson completed 14 passes and was intercepted six times. Each time Hartson came off the field after throwing an interception, he was greeted by Mahoney or an assistant coach with 'Come on, get your head out of your &!(!!(&. ² Play the game.' "

Plaintiff commenced this libel action, contending that the account of his conduct was false and had damaged his reputation. During the trial, plaintiff admitted that he had used the words "hell," "damn," and "goddamn" in reprimanding his team during and after the game. Thus, the trial court dismissed, for lack of proof of falsity, plaintiff's claim as to those portions of the article that described him as having screamed and used profanities toward his players.

The trial court ruled, however, that plaintiff had established a prima facie case with respect to that portion of the article which reported that plaintiff had told his quarterback, "get your head out of your &!(!!(&." The jury awarded plaintiff $10,000 in compensatory damages, finding that this portion of the article was false and defamatory and that defendants had published it with actual malice--either knowing it was false or with reckless disregard for whether it was false. The jury also awarded plaintiff $5,000 in punitive damages after finding that defendants had acted with common-law malice--that is, with a desire to harm plaintiff or reckless disregard for the injurious effect the article would have upon him (see, Corrigan v. Bobbs-Merrill Co., 228 N.Y. 58, 66-67, 126 N.E. 260).

The Appellate Division ruled that there was insufficient evidence of common-law malice and therefore disallowed the award of punitive damages. The court upheld the award of compensatory damages, however, concluding that the evidence was sufficient to sustain the jury's findings that the report was false, defamatory and published with actual malice.

We agree with the Appellate Division that the evidence at trial was sufficient to meet plaintiff's burden of proving that the critical portion of the article was false (see, Philadelphia Newspapers v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767, 106 S.Ct. 1558, 89 L.Ed.2d 783 [public figure plaintiff must bear burden of proving falsity in libel action] ). Game officials testified that they did not observe any unsportsmanlike conduct, including the use of profanities, by plaintiff. Plaintiff and Hartson, the quarterback, testified that plaintiff actually said, encouragingly, "Get your head up" or "Keep your head up." Plaintiff's wife and the quarterback's father, both spectators at the game with a vantage point equal to or better than Bengston's, testified that they did not hear the offensive language. The quarterback's father affirmed that his son had been told by the coach to "[g]et his head up." The coach of the St. Lawrence cheerleaders, who had watched the game from a point about 25 or 30 feet from plaintiff's position on the sideline, testified that she heard no foul language from Mahoney. Thus, there was strong evidence that plaintiff did not make the statements attributed to him in this portion of the article.

We also agree with the Appellate Division that the false portion of the article was reasonably susceptible of a defamatory meaning (see, Silsdorf v. Levine, 59 N.Y.2d 8, 12-13, 462 N.Y.S.2d 822, 449 N.E.2d 716; James v. Gannett Co., 40 N.Y.2d 415, 419, 386 N.Y.S.2d 871, 353 N.E.2d 834). Although it might be argued that the quoted language is not unexpected or out of character for a football coach, the thrust of the article was to the contrary--that such conduct should be condemned. The false attribution of such language to the plaintiff, when viewed in the context of the article as a whole, cast doubt on the plaintiff's fitness for his profession. It cannot be said, therefore, that the excerpt was not defamatory as a matter of law.

That the story was false and defamatory, however, is not enough to sustain plaintiff's claim. The law governing defamation actions is overlaid with a network of constitutionally based rules reflecting our "profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open" (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270, 84 S.Ct. 710, 721, 11 L.Ed.2d 686, supra). The rules are grounded in the First and Fourteenth Amendments and place significant restrictions on the ability of the States to fashion remedies for harm caused by defamatory publications, to ensure that fear of liability will not chill important free speech and free press rights and cause self-censorship. These protections vary considerably in scope and content depending on such factors as whether the plaintiff is a public official, public figure or private individual (see, Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 342-343, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 3008-09, 41 L.Ed.2d 789); whether the defamatory statements involve an issue of public concern (see, Dun & Bradstreet v. Greenmoss Bldrs., 472 U.S. 749, 758-761, 105 S.Ct. 2939, 2946, 86 L.Ed.2d 593); and, perhaps, whether or not the defendant is a member of the media (see, LeBel, Reforming the Tort of Defamation: An Accommodation of the Competing Interests Within the Current Constitutional Framework, 66 Neb.L.Rev. 249, 280-282 [discussing conflicting signals on this point emanating from Dun & Bradstreet v....