Wilson v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 04 March 1975
• Citation: 119 Cal.Rptr. 468,532 P.2d 116,13 Cal.3d 652
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 532 P.2d 116 Oliver Wendell WILSON et al., Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Respondent; Philip E. WATSON, Real Party in Interest. L.A. 30316. In Bank

Page 468

119 Cal.Rptr. 468

13 Cal.3d 652, 532 P.2d 116

Oliver Wendell WILSON et al., Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Respondent Philip E. WATSON, Real Party in Interest.

L.A. 30316.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

March 4, 1975.

Freeman, Kelso & Young and Nancy Kelso, Los Angeles, for petitioners.

No appearance for respondent.

Simon, Sheridan, Murphy, Thornton & Hinerfeld, John D. Cahill and Michael R. Rogers, Los Angeles, for real party in interest.

MOSK, Justice.

In Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974) 418 U.S. 323, 325, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 3000, 41 L.Ed.2d 789, Justice Powell began by observing that 'This Court has struggled for nearly a decade to define the proper accommodation between the law of defamation and the freedoms of speech and press protected by the First Amendment.' Growing public awareness of the need for integrity in the election process has added to the judicial task: in this case we are called upon to determine whether a court may constitutionally enjoin the publication of allegedly misleading and libelous statements made by a condidate for political office about his opponent.

Petitioner was a candidate for the office of Assessor of Los Angeles County in the primary election held on June 4, 1974. In connection with that campaign, he distributed a leaflet entitled 'Newsletter,' dated 'April, May, June, 1974,' in which he reprinted portions of three articles from the Los Angeles Times. Two of the articles on the first page of the circular related that petitioner's opponent, the incumbent assessor Philip E. Watson, had been indicted for bribery and that his aide had been placed on probation for the misuse of campaign funds. The articles bore no date; they had actually appeared in the Times in 1966 and 1967. A second page of the Newsletter contained a portion of another article from the Times headlined, 'Watson Bribery Case Slated for Trial Today.' Above the article was the date 'April 26, 1967,' but either deliberately or inadvertently the printing was blurred and difficult to decipher. The Newsletter did not mention that Watson had been acquitted at the trial. The circular also contained statements concerning the qualifications of petitioner for the office he sought and a summary of his proposed program, and it solicited funds 'to prevent the type of corruption and 'special interest' control that we have suffered over the years.'

On April 15, 1974, Watson filed a complaint seeking damages for libel and slander and an injunction to restrain petitioner from further publication of the Newsletter. At a hearing held that same day, the trial court told petitioner's attorney that petitioner was not 'presenting a clear picture to the voters when he doesn't indicate when all this took place nor indicate the fact that the accused was apparently acquitted on all of these charges,' that petitioner has 'every right to state the truth, but not a portion of the truth, or . . . a narrow view of the truth, which may well be a falsehood,' and that while a 'full and fair and factual presentation of the truth' would not be circumscribed 'this document certainly doesn't do it.' Petitioner insisted that he had a constitutional right to publish the material in question.

The trial court issued a temporary restraining order enjoining petitioner and any of his agents or employees 'and all persons acting in concert and participation with them' from 'printing, posting, publishing, and distributing' the Newsletter 'or written or oral statements substantially similar' to those made in the Newsletter. The court also ordered petitioner to show cause why he should not be enjoined from such publication while the libel action was pending.

Thereafter, petitioner amended the Newsletter as follows: in one version he added the dates '12/1/66' and '3/30/67' to the two articles on the first page, but did not clarify the date on the second page above the article referring to Watson's bribery trial. In another edition of the circular he added a reprinted article on the second page dated '5--9--67' which stated that Watson had been acquitted of the charges, and in a fourth version he inserted yet another article dated '5--5--67' stating that Watson had been acquitted of the charges because of insufficient evidence.

On April 30 the motion for a preliminary injunction came on for hearing. Over petitioner's protest that enjoining publication of the Newsletter would amount to an unconstitutional prior restraint, the court declared that it would not prevent petitioner from bringing Watson's history before the public but that this must be done 'in such a manner that the average voter, looking at that will understand that they are not current articles.' The court suggested that the numerical references to the date in the later versions of the Newsletter might appear to the average person to be a file number rather than a date, and that each article should state that it is reprinted from a named newspaper, should spell out the month, date and year in full, and that the fact of Watson's acquittal should be printed in the same size type as the reference to the bribery charge.

A preliminary injunction was issued in terms substantially similar to the restraining order, except that the injunction was effective during the pendency of Watson's action, and included the later versions of the Newsletter in its scope. The injunction also added that newspaper articles concerning plaintiff must be presented in a 'fair and balanced manner with a full presentation of the facts' and must be accompanied by a statement of the source of the article, and its full date, without abbreviation, and that reprinted articles 'must be placed in a position to give a balanced presentation of the facts.'

Petitioner thereafter instituted this proceeding, seeking a writ of prohibition to prevent the trial court from enforcing the restraining order and the injunction. ¹ We issued an alternative writ on May 31, 1974.

The principles applicable to this case are well settled. More than four decades ago, the United States Supreme Court in Near v. Minnesota (1931) 283 U.S. 697, 51 S.Ct. 625, 75 L.Ed. 1357, declared that prior restraint upon publications which refer to the malfeasance of public officers would violate the guarantees of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. A Minnesota statute provided for the abatement, as a public nuisance, of a 'malicious, scandalous and defamatory newspaper, magazine or other periodical.' The defendant was enjoined under the statute from publishing a newspaper charging that certain public officials participated in graft, were controlled by gangsters, and had grossly neglected their duties.

The court reversed the judgment, declaring: 'In determining the extent of the constitutional protection, it has been generally, if not universally, considered that it is the chief purpose of the guaranty (of a free press) to prevent previous restraints upon publication. . . . That liberty was especially cherished for the immunity it afforded from previous restraint of the publication of censure of public officers and charges of official misconduct. . . . The fact that for approximately one hundred and fifty years there has been almost an entire absence of attempts to impose previous restraints upon publications relating to the malfeasance of public officers is significant of the deep-seated conviction that such restraints would violate constitutional right. . . . The recognition of authority to impose previous restraint upon publication in order to protect the community against the circulation of charges of misconduct, and especially of official misconduct, necessarily would carry with it the admission of the authority of the censor against which the constitutional barrier was erected.' (283 U.S. at pp. 713, 717, 718, 721, 51 S.Ct. at p. 630.)

These principles have retained their vigor from 1931 to date. From Near to Times-Picayune Pub. Corp. v. Schuling-kamp (1974) 419 U.S. 1301, 95 S.Ct. 1, 42 L.Ed.2d 17, it has been consistently held that any prior restraint on expression bears a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity. A recent case declined to restrain publication of the so-called 'Pentagon Papers' despite the urging of the government that the publication would result in a serious breach of national security (New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) 403 U.S. 713, 91 S.Ct. 2140, 29 L.Ed.2d 822), ² and an attempt to restrain distribution of a pamphlet criticizing a real estate broker for his selling practices has likewise been held improper (Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971) 402 U.S. 415, 91 S.Ct. 1575, 29 L.Ed.2d 1). (See also Miami Herald Publishing Company v. Tornillo (1974) 418 U.S. 241, 94 S.Ct. 2831, 41 L.Ed.2d 730, Town of Lantana v. Pelczynski (Fla.1974) 303 So.2d 326.)

The overriding significance of these precepts was emphasized in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) 376 U.S. 254, 279--280, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686, in which it was held that a public official may not recover damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with actual malice. In its opinion, the court characterized as a 'profound national commitment' the principle that debate on public issues must be 'uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.' (376 U.S. at p. 270, 84 S.Ct. at p. 721.) These authorities leave no doubt that the truth or falsity of a statement on a public issue is irrelevant to the question whether it should be repressed in advance of publication.

A protective provision more definitive and inclusive than the First Amendment is contained in our state constitutional guarantee of the right of free speech and press. Section 2 of article I of the California Constitution provides, ...