Tomasino v. William Morrow & Co., Inc.
| Decision Date | 24 June 1991 |
| Parties | , 18 Media L. Rep. 2399 Vincent TOMASINO, Respondent, v. WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY, INC., et al., Appellants, et al., Defendant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Robert J. Hawley, New York City, for appellants.
Baram & Kaiser, Garden City (David Baram, of counsel), for respondent.
Before KOOPER, J.P., and SULLIVAN, LAWRENCE and ROSENBLATT, JJ.
MEMORANDUM BY THE COURT.
In an action to recover damages for libel and for a violation of Civil Rights Law § 51, the defendants William Morrow & Company, Inc., and St. Martin's Press Incorporated, appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Kutner, J.), dated January 12, 1990, which denied their motion to dismiss the complaint as barred by the applicable Statute of Limitations.
ORDERED that the order is reversed, on the law, with costs, the motion is granted, the complaint is dismissed insofar as it is asserted against the appellants, and the action against the remaining defendant is severed.
The plaintiff commenced this action against the publishers of both the hardcover and paperback editions of the novel, Ride A Tiger, alleging that the book falsely and wrongfully portrayed him as, among other things, an organized crime boss, a labor union racketeer, a gambler and a murderer. Additionally, he claimed that the defendants used his name and description in the State of New York for the purposes of trade, without either his written or oral consent.
Under the "single publication rule" applicable to allegedly libelous works, both causes of action accrued at the time of their original publication (see, Wolfson v. Syracuse Newspapers, Inc., 254 App.Div. 211, 4 N.Y.S.2d 640, affd., 279 N.Y. 716, 18 N.E.2d 676). The case law has defined the term "publication" to mean the earliest date on which the work was placed on sale or became generally available to the public (see, Gregoire v. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 298 N.Y. 119, 125, 81 N.E.2d 45 []; Rinaldi v. Viking Penguin, 52 N.Y.2d 422, 434-435, 438 N.Y.S.2d 496, 420 N.E.2d 377 []; see also, Zuck v. Interstate Pub. Corp., 2nd Cir., 317 F.2d 727; Khaury v. Playboy Pub. Inc., 430 F.Supp. 1342, 1344; Pascuzzi v. Montcalm Pub. Corp., 65 A.D.2d 786, 410 N.Y.S.2d 325; Sorge v. Parade Pub., 20 A.D.2d 338, 343, 247 N.Y.S.2d 317). In Dannenmann v. Doubleday & Co. (9 Med.L.Rptr. 1247, 1249 [SDNY 1983], the court further held...
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