Thanh v. Ngo
| Decision Date | 22 July 2016 |
| Docket Number | Civil No. PJM 14-448 |
| Parties | HOAI THANH Plaintiff v. HIEN T. NGO Defendant |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
The seemingly endless litigation between Plaintiff Hoai Thanh and Defendant Hien T. Ngo has now been whittled down to the present suit ("Thanh II") and a single remaining claim: false light/invasion of privacy arising from an article that Ngo purportedly published on the internet on October 2, 2011. The factual and procedural background of the case is detailed in the Court's Opinion in Hoai Thanh v. Hien T. Ngo, Civ. No. 11-PJM-1992 (May 8, 2015) ("Thanh I"). Ngo now moves for summary judgment, asserting that Thanh has fatally misstated the date of the publication, which undisputed evidence shows occurred at the latest in October 2007. As a result, says Ngo, Thanh has failed to allege the false light claim with adequate specificity, and in any event, she continues, the claim is barred by the statute of limitations. Thanh asserts that actual publication occurred in October 2011 and, regardless of the date of publication, that his suit is timely because the cause of action did not accrue until he discovered the publication in 2012.
For the following reasons, the Court will GRANT Ngo's Motion for Summary Judgment.
In Thanh I, Thanh alleged he was attacked by Ngo on multiple fronts—defaming him, casting him in a false light, intimidating him, filing "baseless" lawsuits against him—all in retaliation after Thanh published accusations against Ngo in his newspaper, Dai Chung, to the effect that Ngo was misusing charitable funds. On November 27, 2013, in Thanh I, Thanh moved to amend his Complaint to add further claims of defamation and false light. The Court denied the motion as too late to be filed in that suit, but did grant Thanh leave to file a separate lawsuit alleging any cause of action included in the motion to amend that was not already part of Thanh I. See Order of January 14, 2014 at 2, Thanh I, ECF No. 105. The case currently pending before the Court, Thanh II, is that separate lawsuit.1
The Complaint in the present case was filed February 14, 2014. ECF No. 1. After the Court twice gave Thanh leave to amend, it granted Ngo's Motion to Dismiss as to all but a single claim: Count I-A of the Second Amended Complaint alleging false light/invasion of privacy arising from an article Ngo purportedly published in Vietnamese on the internet on October 2, 2011. See Memo. Op. at 11-15 (May 8, 2015), ECF No. 16.
Thanh alleges in this claim that on October 2, 2011, Ngo "published on Google on the Internet what was a republishing of a document that she had repeatedly used previously in her broadcasts and also on the Internet," which, Thanh says, placed him in a false light. Second Amend. Compl. ¶ 63, ECF No. 9-2. Thanh goes on to explain that "this republishing was not discovered by him despite his diligence until another Vietnamese person called it to his attention just a few days before he was deposed by the defendant's counsel for the first time in [Thanh I]on April 6, 2012,2 at which time the plaintiff gave a copy of that blast email to the defendant[.]" Id.
The Second Amended Complaint cites a number of sections from the publication (translated from Vietnamese) as examples of false light which purportedly state or imply that Thanh is "a communist or is under the control of the hated communist government in Vietnam, . . . is too stupid to run a newspaper, [and] that [his] newspaper lied and misled the public." See Second Amended Compl. ¶ 64, ECF No. 9-2 (). Other quoted passages state that Thanh is a "cheater," an "infidel," and bankrupt. Second Amended Compl. ¶ 66 ( ).
The Second Amended Complaint also quotes a passage from the October 2, 2011 publication which Thanh alleges falsely calls him a "crook" in his dealings with a Mrs. Minh, a woman to whom Thanh supposedly owed a debt. The quoted passage states that "Mrs. Minh [ . . . ] voluntarily phoned me [Ngo] at will to retell me [Ngo] how she had lent Mr. Hoai Thanh money." Second Amended Compl. ¶ 65. The publication purportedly goes on to say that, when Mrs. Minh went to Thanh's house to collect her debt, Thanh called the police to have her arrested. Minh was said to have been handcuffed, arrested, and later set free on bond. Id. Thanhasserts Ngo knew of the falsity of the statements in the article: specifically, he references a deposition of Minh taken in Thanh I, in which Minh, contrary to what Ngo was maintaining, stated that no such arrest and no such handcuffing actually took place.
In ruling on Ngo's Motion to Dismiss in the present case, the Court determined that the false light claim, when viewed in the light most favorable to Thanh, sufficiently alleged that Ngo personally published what might be fairly construed as derogatory statements about Thanh on October 2, 2011. Memo. Op. at 11-15, ECF No. 16. While the Court found this allegation of false light plausible, it declined to hold as a matter of law that such statements would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.
In addition, because Maryland's statute of limitations for false light claims is three years, the Court concluded that Thanh's false light claim for the supposed October 2, 2011 publication appeared to be timely, whether calculated from the date Thanh moved to amend his complaint in Thanh I (November 27, 2013) or from the date Thanh II was filed (February 14, 2014). See Memo. Op. at 6-7. On the other hand, the Court granted Ngo's Motion to Dismiss as to Thanh's defamation claim with respect to the October 2, 2011 broadcast, because it fell outside of Maryland's one-year statute of limitations for defamation claims.
The Court now considers Ngo's Motion for Summary Judgment on the remaining false light claim. Ngo argues that there can be no genuine dispute that Ngo did not, in fact, publish any article on October 2, 2011. Instead, she says, the undisputed evidence demonstrates that she posted the article to an online discussion group no later than 2007, and thereafter some third party posted the article to the Tin Paris website, a Vietnamese-language online magazine, in October or November 2007. Ngo has presented evidence that Thanh's copy of the article with the date October 2, 2011 is, in fact, a Google cache or "snapshot" of the Tin Paris website, towhich the article was posted in 2007. Def.'s Mot. Summ. J. at 5-7, ECF No. 21-1. On this basis, Ngo argues that Thanh has failed to present sufficient evidence that she published any statements at all on October 2, 2011, much less false light statements. Further, his claims are barred by the statute of limitations because, as a matter of law, the discovery rule does not apply to false light statements published in mass media. Def.'s Reply Mot. Summ. J. at 6-9, ECF No. 24.
Thanh argues in response that he is not an IT expert, and it is a question of fact "whether or not the defendant published this material." Pl.'s Resp. Opp'n Mot. Summ. J. at 1-2, ECF No. 23. Further, Thanh believes that whether the statute of limitations should render his claim untimely is a question of fact, based on "whether the plaintiff discovered it when he did was reasonable under the circumstances." Id. at 2. Thanh's sole evidentiary support consists of an affidavit from himself alone, in which he states that Ngo "republished" the article many times "throughout October and November of 2011" but he (Thanh) only became aware of the article "after another person brought it to his attention." Pl.'s Resp. Opp'n Mot. Summ. J., Ex. 1, Thanh Aff. ¶¶ 9-10, ECF No. 23-1.
A court may grant summary judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a) only when there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact, and the moving party is plainly entitled to judgment in its favor as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 56(a); see Bostic v. Schaefer, 760 F.3d 352, 370 (4th Cir. 2014). A dispute of material fact is genuine "if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). A material fact is one "that might affect the outcome of the suit under governing law." Libertarian Party of Va. v. Judd, 718 F.3d308, 313 (2013) (quoting Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248). Thus, "the judge must ask himself not whether he thinks the evidence unmistakably favors one side or the other but whether a fair-minded jury could return a verdict for the [nonmoving party] on the evidence presented." Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252.
This inquiry requires the court to view the record "in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion" and to draw all reasonable inferences in that party's favor. Foster v. Univ. of Maryland-E. Shore, 787 F.3d 243, 248 (4th Cir. 2015). Nevertheless, "it is ultimately the nonmovant's burden to persuade [the court] that there is indeed a dispute of material fact." CoreTel Va., LLC v. Verizon Va., LLC, 752 F.3d 364, 370 (4th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). The burden on the nonmoving party extends to establishing a genuine issue of material fact on each essential element of its case. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248-49; Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). Thus, a party opposing the motion may not defeat summary judgment by relying on a mere "scintilla of evidence" or by means of mere conclusory allegations or speculation. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 251; see Am. Arms Int'l v. Herbert, 563 F.3d 78, 82 (4th Cir. 2009)....
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