Weiner v. Doubleday & Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 14 December 1989
• Citation: 74 N.Y.2d 586,550 N.Y.S.2d 251,549 N.E.2d 453
• Parties: , 549 N.E.2d 453, 17 Media L. Rep. 1165 Herman WEINER, Appellant, v. DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC., et al., Respondents.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 251

550 N.Y.S.2d 251

74 N.Y.2d 586, 549 N.E.2d 453, 17

Media L. Rep. 1165

Herman WEINER, Appellant, v. DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC., et al., Respondents.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Dec. 14, 1989.

Certiorari Denied May 14, 1990.

See 110 S.Ct. 2168.

[74 N.Y.2d 588] Murray Kagel, Lyman Stansky and Richard E. Mischel, New York City, for appellant.

Victor A. Kovner, Harriette K. Dorsen, Katherine Trager, Laura R. Handman and Pamela M. Parker, New York City, for respondents.

[74 N.Y.2d 589] Edward A. Miller and Slade R. Metcalf, New York City, for Ass'n of American Publishers, Inc., and another, amici curiae.

[74 N.Y.2d 590] [549 N.E.2d 454] Arthur N. Eisenberg and Kenneth P. Norwick, New York City, for New York Civil Liberties Union, amicus curiae.

OPINION OF THE COURT

KAYE, Judge.

The pivotal issue in this libel action, brought by a plaintiff who is not a public figure against the author and publisher of a nonfiction book, is whether defendants' investigation of allegedly defamatory statements was sufficient to shield them from liability, or whether they "acted in a grossly irresponsible manner without due consideration for the standards of information gathering and dissemination ordinarily followed by responsible parties." (Chapadeau v. Utica Observer-Dispatch, 38 N.Y.2d 196, 199, 379 N.Y.S.2d 61, 341 N.E.2d 569.)

Defendant Shana Alexander, a well-known journalist, wrote a book entitled "Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder: A Family Album," published by codefendant Doubleday & Company. "Nutcracker" is a nonfictional exploration of the Salt Lake City murder of Mormon multimillionaire Franklin Bradshaw, a murder which Bradshaw's then 17-year-old grandson Marc Schreuder was convicted of committing. At a subsequent trial, based on Marc Schreuder's testimony, his mother--Franklin Bradshaw's daughter--Frances Bradshaw Schreuder, was convicted of planning the murder and dispatching Marc to carry it out.

Although "Nutcracker" attempts to reconstruct the murder and surrounding events, the book is more than a blow-by-blow account of the crime. Rather, it purports to be a searching inquiry into the Bradshaw family's history of emotional disturbance, with particular focus on family influences in the formation of Frances Schreuder's personality. Schreuder is portrayed as a person whose deep emotional disturbances were manifested in varied extreme forms, including child abuse, persistent lying and two stormy, broken marriages. The primary sources of Alexander's psychological portrait are the other members of the extended Bradshaw family and Richard Behrens, Frances Schreuder's only friend and confidant during much of the period covered by the book.

The statements that give rise to this defamation action appear in a section of "Nutcracker" that is prefaced as follows: "Details of Frances's domestic existence must of necessity be reconstructed from the recollections of other members of her always carefully locked and guarded household: children, ex-husbands, ex-servants, Behrens and Berenice [Schreuder's mother]--her only visitors. Not the best of sources in any circumstances, especially these". Several pages later appear the two paragraphs that contain the book's only reference to plaintiff:

"In 1966 Frances put herself for two years under the care of a Park Avenue psychiatrist named Herman Weiner, who seems to have encouraged his patient to stand up to her overprotective mother. Berenice was attempting to infantilize her, Frances decided. She told Marc that Granny had a neurotic need for 'babies to smother,' which could account for Berenice's intense dislike of the man she began to habitually refer to as 'Weenie, the big, fat, ugly Jew.'

"Robert Reagan remembers Dr. Weiner arriving in court to testify for Frances, during the divorce proceedings, eccentrically costumed in bright red slacks and a loud plaid jacket. Marilyn Reagan remembers the size of one of his bills: Frances owed her psychiatrist $3,000. 'My understanding was that her problem was inability facing reality,' says Marilyn. The huge unpaid bill made her sister think it might be the psychiatrist who had this problem, not his patient. Later, when Behrens claimed that 'Frances always slept with her shrinks,' the Reagans said they were not at all surprised. They'd suspected 'hanky panky,' they confessed. Berenice has said the same."

Plaintiff contends that the sentence "Frances always slept with her shrinks," read in the context of the rest of the paragraph, defamed him, as it falsely accused him of having sexual relations with his patient. ^*

In response, defendants contend that the challenged statements are simply not specific enough to be defamatory and, in any event, are a constitutionally protected expression of "opinion" as to which no claim of defamation will lie. Alternatively, defendants argue that the statements concern a subject "reasonably related to matters warranting public exposition" (Chapadeau v. Utica Observer-Dispatch, 38 N.Y.2d, at 199, 379 N.Y.S.2d 61, 341 N.E.2d 569, supra), and that plaintiff has failed to demonstrate--as he must to prevail on a claim of defamation with respect to such subject matter--that defendants acted without due consideration for responsible standards of information gathering and dissemination (id.). Reversing the trial court, which had directed summary judgment for plaintiff on the issue of liability, the Appellate Division granted defendants' joint cross motion for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint, on the basis of all three somewhat inconsistent grounds asserted by defendants (142 A.D.2d 100, 535 N.Y.S.2d 597). We now affirm, on the last ground alone.

At the outset, we reject defendants' contention that under common law, the challenged statements are not susceptible of the defamatory meaning ascribed to them by plaintiff. Whether the contested statements are reasonably susceptible of a defamatory connotation is in the first instance a legal determination for the court. In analyzing the words in order to make that threshold decision, the court must not isolate them, but consider them in context, and give the language a natural reading rather than strain to read it as mildly as possible at one extreme, or to find defamatory innuendo at the other (see, James v. Gannett Co., 40 N.Y.2d 415, 419-420, 386 N.Y.S.2d 871, 353 N.E.2d 834).

Applying these principles, we conclude that in this case the sentence "Frances always slept with her shrinks" is reasonably susceptible of a defamatory meaning. In isolation, it might be mere exaggeration or hyperbole, as defendants contend; removed from its context in the book, the confirmation by Frances' relatives that they suspected "hanky panky" might be pure speculation. But viewing the quoted paragraphs as a whole, as we are obliged to do, the focus is not on Frances' promiscuity in general or on her relationship with psychiatrists in general, but on plaintiff alone and his relationship with Frances. Contrary to defendants' claim, it is not so unmistakably clear that the sole purpose of these paragraphs is to demonstrate the hostility of Frances' family and Behrens toward the psychiatric profession that a more specific defamatory connotation may not also be understood.

We next turn to defendants' claim under the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution. It is settled that expressions of opinion, in contrast to assertions of fact, are privileged and, however offensive, may not be the subject of an action for defamation (Steinhilber v. Alphonse, 68 N.Y.2d 283, 508 N.Y.S.2d 901, 501 N.E.2d 550). Defendants argue that this protection applies to the language singled out by plaintiff.

According to defendants, Alexander's method in assembling the "family album" was simply to recount the memories of those close to Schreuder, often in their own words, and to present sometimes conflicting points of view without necessarily attempting to reconcile them. Defendants characterize the book as "a kaleidoscope of often uncertain impressions". This indeed is an accurate description of Alexander's technique; at several points she casts doubt on the accuracy and veracity of her informants. The resulting document, of a sort not entirely unfamiliar to readers of "true crime" accounts, is a hybrid genre. Largely a pastiche of statements by interviewees who are unendorsed and at times openly disparaged by Alexander herself, it eludes ready classification as "fact" or "opinion."

Defendants' efforts to fit the challenged statements into the protected "opinion" classification are predicated upon the peculiar...