Schultz v. Reader's Digest Ass'n

• Decision Date: 06 March 1979
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 7-70310.
• Citation: 468 F. Supp. 551
• Parties: Leonard SCHULTZ, Plaintiff, v. READER'S DIGEST ASSOCIATION, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

468 F. Supp. 551

Leonard SCHULTZ, Plaintiff, v. READER'S DIGEST ASSOCIATION, Defendant.

Civ. No. 7-70310.

United States District Court, E. D. Michigan, S. D.

March 6, 1979.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Neal Bush and Kenneth M. Mogill, Detroit, Mich., for plaintiff.

Curtis W. Poole, Jr., Kathleen McCree Lewis and Mark H. Sutton, Detroit, Mich., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

RALPH M. FREEMAN, District Judge.

This is a libel case where the plaintiff, Leonard Schultz, has sued the Reader's Digest Association alleging that he was defamed in an article published in Reader's Digest Magazine in December, 1976. The article, entitled Why Jimmy Hoffa Had to Die, was written by Lester Velie. It details the connections between Hoffa and the underworld and concludes that Hoffa was murdered because he posed a threat to the sweetheart contracts then being negotiated between the Teamster's Union and businesses controlled by the underworld. The only mention of the plaintiff in the article is as follows:

On his way to the restaurant, Hoffa stopped off at the offices of an airport-limousine business in which he had a hidden interest. He asked for his partner, Louis Linteau. Apparently, Hoffa wanted others to know of his meeting. Finding that Linteau was out, Hoffa told several employees whom he was going to meet: Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone (T.J.), Tony Provenzano and a man named Lenny.

Giacalone, according to Senate testimony, was the Mafia's enforcer in Detroit. Provenzano, a convicted extortionist, allegedly with mob connections, is now a Teamster boss in northern New Jersey. And Lenny was probably Lenny Schultz, an ex-convict associated with Giacalone. Two of the men had been close to Hoffa for years. But in Hoffa's struggle to return to power, which would have replaced Teamster president Frank E. Fitzsimmons, Giacalone and Provenzano had turned away from Hoffa and had decided to court Fitzsimmons. Hoffa perhaps sensed that his meeting could be a trap.

. . . . .

(The three men Hoffa had planned to meet on his last day denied meeting him and provided alibies.)

The defendant has moved for a summary judgment on three alternative grounds. First, the defendant claims that the references to the plaintiff contained in the article are not defamatory as a matter of law. Next, the defendant maintains that the plaintiff is a public figure for purposes of a libel action and cannot recover because the article was not published maliciously. Finally, the defendant argues that the article in question is subject to a state law privilege of fair comment requiring the plaintiff to show malice.

A. Defamatory Nature of the Article

The defendant maintains that the above quoted references to the plaintiff are nondefamatory as a matter of law. It argues that although the article does refer to the plaintiff as one of the men that Hoffa planned to meet on the day he disappeared, there is nothing defamatory in this statement.

The plaintiff has also moved for a summary judgment that the article is libel per se because it imputes the commission of a crime to the plaintiff; that being the abduction and murder of Jimmy Hoffa. See Sias v. General Motors Corp., 372 Mich. 542, 127 N.W.2d 357 (1964). The plaintiff alleges that not only does the article accuse him of setting up Jimmy Hoffa for abduction, it improperly characterizes him as an associate of an alleged underworld figure, Anthony Giacalone. This characterization the plaintiff claims lends credence to his theory that the article can only be read as imputing to him a role in the disappearance of Hoffa.¹

The article here is susceptible of two interpretations, one of which is arguably nondefamatory, the other arguably defamatory. If one reads the article as merely stating a fact, i. e., that Jimmy Hoffa thought he was going to meet Leonard Schultz on the day he disappeared, it appears that the article does not fall within the definition of defamation set forth below.²

The article is, however, susceptible of another interpretation. The author clearly takes the position that Jimmy Hoffa was murdered. In addition, the article at the very least suggests that the meeting at the restaurant was "set up" with the intention that Hoffa would be abducted there. Viewing the article in this light, one gets the impression that Mr. Schultz may have been involved in "setting up" Jimmy Hoffa to be murdered. This interpretation is clearly defamatory.

Where words are susceptible of a possibly defamatory interpretation:

It is for the Court in the first instance to determine whether the words are reasonably capable of a particular interpretation or whether they are necessarily so; it is then for the jury to say whether they were in fact so understood. Prosser, supra, pp. 743-44.

As noted above, it appears that the article is reasonably susceptible of a defamatory interpretation, therefore it is for the jury to determine whether this is the way the article is understood. As a result, both motions for summary judgment regarding the interpretation of the article are denied.

B. Public Figure

The defendant maintains, in the alternative, that the plaintiff is either a public figure for all purposes or a limited public figure with respect to the Hoffa disappearance. If this is the case, Mr. Schultz can recover for the alleged defamation only by showing that the article was published with actual malice.

The public figure doctrine as it relates to defamation actions had its origin in New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964). There the Court held that the First Amendment requires that a public official must prove that he was libeled with malicious intent in order to recover. The Court went on to hold that a finding of malicious intent requires a showing that the defendant published the defamatory article with actual knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for its truth.

The malice requirement for public officials was later extended to "public figures" in Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 87 S.Ct. 1975, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967). In the later case of Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, 403 U.S. 29, 91 S.Ct. 1811, 29 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971), a plurality of the Court extended the malice requirement to the situation where a private individual is defamed in a story of general or public interest. This position was later rejected in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974), where the Court held that a private person defamed in a story of public importance was not constitutionally required to show malice in order to recover. The Court went on to hold that the malice requirement applied only in cases where the individual defamed could be classed as a public figure.

The term "public figure" as defined in Gertz encompasses two classes of persons. The first class consists of "those who occupy positions of such pervasive power that they are deemed public figures for all purposes." Id. at 345, 94 S.Ct. at 3009. In order for a person to be classed as a public figure for all purposes, there must be "clear evidence of general fame or notoriety in the community and pervasive involvement in the affairs of society." Id. at 352, 94 S.Ct. at 3013. The court in Gertz recognized a second class of public figures consisting of those persons who "have thrust themselves to the forefront of particular public controversies in order to influence the resolution of the issues involved." Id. at 345, 94 S.Ct. at 3009. Such persons are held to be limited public figures with respect to publications concerning the particular controversy.

The public figure doctrine is an attempt to strike a balance between the First Amendment interest in a press free from the self-censorship considerations arising from the existence of libel laws and the state interest in providing civil remedies for defamatory falsehood. The public figure doctrine recognizes that the state interest in protecting certain persons classed as public figures is less than in the case of purely private individuals. An initial reason for the public figure classification was a perception by the Gertz court that states have a lesser interest in protecting public figures because these persons have greater access to channels of communication and hence are better able to counteract false statements about themselves without resorting to litigation. Gertz, supra, at 344, 94 S.Ct. 2997. More importantly, as the Court pointed out in Gertz, these persons by becoming public figures, have voluntarily exposed themselves to increased risk of injury from defamatory falsehood. Thus, they are less deserving of recovery. Id. at 344-45, 94 S.Ct. 2997.

In Time, Inc. v. Firestone, 424 U.S. 448, 96 S.Ct. 958, 47 L.Ed.2d 154 (1976), the Court placed particular emphasis on this requirement of voluntariness. The action was brought by Mary Alice Firestone against Time Magazine for erroneously reporting the grounds on which her divorce petition was granted. Although the Court held that a divorce proceeding was not the type of public controversy contemplated by Gertz, it also indicated that Mrs. Firestone's involvement in the controversy was not sufficiently voluntary for her to be classed as a limited public figure under Gertz. In so holding, the Court noted that Mrs. Firestone did not "freely choose to publicize issues as to the propriety of her married life." Id. at 454, 96 S.Ct. at 965. Even though she had held a few press conferences, the Court found that this did not make her a public figure because these conferences were merely to satisfy inquiring reporters and were not calculated to influence the resolution of the issue.

* * *

In attempting to satisfy the requirements of the cases cited above, the defendant points to several factors which it claims indicate that Mr. Schultz is either a public figure for all purposes or a limited public figure with respect to the Hoffa disappearance. First, Mr. Schultz has been...