Piracci v. Hearst Corporation
| Decision Date | 26 April 1966 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 16696. |
| Citation | 263 F. Supp. 511 |
| Parties | Thomas M. PIRACCI, Infant, by His Mother and Next Friend, Violet M. Piracci, v. The HEARST CORPORATION. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
Marvin Ellin, Baltimore, Md., for plaintiff.
Theodore Sherbow, William A. Agee, Sherbow, Shea & Doyle, Baltimore, Md., for defendant.
Defendant has moved for summary judgment in this libel action. The facts on which this present motion is based have been viewed by the court in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. These facts have been taken from plaintiff's pleadings, from written admissions, from various documents submitted by plaintiff, and from statements made in open court. They are as follows:
On or about August 14, 1965, the police department of Ocean City, Maryland, received information regarding the possible possession and sale of marijuana and other narcotics by the operators of the Mariner Sandal Shop in Ocean City. The police, acting upon this information, obtained a search warrant.
As a result of the search warrant, a mass arrest was made on August 14, 1965, of persons present in a back room of the Mariner Sandal Shop. Those arrested were taken to the police station. Among those present and taken to the police station was the infant plaintiff, Thomas Michael Piracci.
The following notation was made in the docket or log of the Ocean City Police Department:
"8/14—10:15 P.M
The following entry appears in Arrest Record Number 2943 of the Ocean City Police Department:
Thomas Michael Piracci was detained as a juvenile in a detention room at the Ocean City Police Substation and was questioned by the police to determine what knowledge he had of the presence of marijuana on the premises of the sandal shop. On Sunday morning, August 15, 1965, the infant plaintiff was released to the custody of his father and was directed to appear before the judge of the Juvenile Court in Snow Hill, Maryland, on August 20, 1965, for a hearing.
On or about August 18, the defendant newspaper published the following article:
At some time before the juvenile hearing on August 20, it was determined that the plaintiff had been employed as a sandal maker at the raided premises. Investigation failed to reveal any connection between the plaintiff and the marijuana, other than his presence on the premises. On August 20, the juvenile petition involving Piracci was withdrawn upon the motion of the State's Attorney for Worcester County.
On September 8, plaintiff brought this libel action, claiming that the defendant falsely and maliciously published the above-quoted newspaper article. Thereafter, defendant moved for summary judgment, claiming that there is no genuine dispute as to a material fact, and that he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Plaintiff's suit rests on the following contentions:
(1) That on the date the article was published and on the date referred to in the article, the infant plaintiff in fact was at home with his parents in Pikesville.
(2) That he had not been charged with possession of marijuana since, as a juvenile, under Md.Code Ann. art. 26, § 54 (1964), he could have been charged only as a delinquent, dependent, neglected, or feeble-minded child, and not with the commission of any crime.
The fact that the article states that the plaintiff was in custody on August 16, whereas he in fact had in fact been released on the fifteenth, does not support this action for libel. A newspaper enjoys a qualified privilege to the extent that an account such as the publication involved in this case "is fair and substantially correct." Brush-Moore Newspapers, Inc. v. Pollitt, 220 Md. 132, 138, 151 A.2d 530 (1959). Cf. Evening News Co. v. Bowie, 154 Md. 604, 611, 141 A. 416 (1928); 14 Md.Law Encyc., Libel & Slander § 44 (1961); 1 Harper & James, Torts § 5.24, at 432 (1956). As a matter of law, the court concludes that the statement that the plaintiff was in custody on the sixteenth, whereas in fact he had been released from the physical custody of the police on the fifteenth, was such a minor variation of the true fact that, as to this point, the article is substantially accurate.1
Plaintiff further urges that because the publication lists "possession of marijuana" after the plaintiff's name, the motion for summary judgment must be denied. This contention is based upon Md. Code Ann. art. 26, § 54 (1964), which provides as follows:
"Any child brought before the judge in the exercise of the aforesaid jurisdiction over juveniles shall be charged only as a dependent child, a delinquent child, a neglected child, or a feeble-minded child, * * * and shall not be charged with the commission of any crime. * * *" (Emphasis added.)
Under section 54, the plaintiff could not have been "charged" with the commission of a crime until after a judge, sitting as a juvenile court, had determined to waive juvenile jurisdiction so that the child might be tried as an adult. Therefore, claims the plaintiff, the article is false in stating that he had been charged with possession of marijuana.
However, in providing for waiver of juvenile jurisdiction section 54 states:
"If any such child is charged with the commission of an act * * * which would amount to a misdemeanor or felony if committed by an adult, the judge, after full investigation, may in his discretion waive jurisdiction * * *." (Emphasis added.)
Thus, it seems that a juvenile can be "charged" with the act of possessing marijuana; this charged act would justify his being brought before a judge on a charge of delinquency. Thus, plaintiff would be foreclosed from recovery if the article had stated:
"Thomas Michael Piracci, 15, 9 Cloverly Rd., charged with delinquency due to the act of possessing marijuana."
If that ten-word statement would foreclose liability, it seems less than reasonable to allow recovery when the only notation following the name and address was "possession of marijuana." At any rate, the difference between "delinquent by reason of possession of marijuana"2 and "possession of marijuana" is, in legal effect in this libel action, so slight that this portion of the article, as a matter of law, is also substantially accurate.3
Recovery is further foreclosed by the privilege a newspaper enjoys to publish reports of the arrest of persons and the charges upon which the arrests are based, as well as other matters involving violations of the law. This privilege remains intact so long as the publication is confined to a substantially accurate statement of the facts and does not comment upon or infer probable guilt of the person arrested.
In Commercial Publishing Co. v. Smith, 149 F. 704, 706 (6th Cir. 1907), the court stated, in upholding the privilege of a newspaper to comment upon the fact of an arrest, that * * *"4 Substantially the same language appears in Lancour v. Herald & Globe Ass'n, 111 Vt. 371, 17 A.2d 253, 256, 132 A.L.R. 486 (1941). Cf. O'Neal v. Tribune Co., 176 So.2d 535 (Fla.App. 1965); Stice v. Beacon Newspaper Corp., Inc., 185 Kan. 61, 340 P.2d 396, 76 A.L.R. 2d 687 (1959).
The publication involved in the instant case cannot be said to comment upon the guilt or innocence of young Piracci. The article, as a whole, gives a substantially accurate account of the arrest of the plaintiff and the reason for that arrest.
The parties are in disagreement as to the public nature of the arrest docket and log, which contain the notation that...
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Batson v. Shiflett
...was properly submitted to the jury. B. FALSITY A false statement is one that is not substantially correct. See Piracci v. Hearst Corp., 263 F.Supp. 511, 513 (D.Md.1966), aff'd, 371 F.2d 1016 (4th Cir.1967). The burden of proving falsity is on the plaintiff; truth is not an affirmative defen......
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