Court Rejects Author’s Suit Over Book Listings

In a victory for news organizations, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday that the New York Times could not be held liable for failing to include a sequel to “The Exorcist” on its prestigious weekly list of best-selling books.

The justices unanimously overturned a ruling by the state Court of Appeal that had permitted author William Peter Blatty to proceed with a damage suit contending that the newspaper had wrongfully cost him millions of dollars in prospective earnings by intentionally omitting his book “Legion” from the listings in the summer of 1983.

Blatty contended that “Legion” sold more than enough copies to warrant inclusion in the list and that the paper had failed to make an objective and accurate assessment of the book’s sales.

The appellate court allowed the author to sue the newspaper for purposely interfering with his “prospective economic advantage”--the money Blatty claimed he would have made from paperback and movie rights had the book made the list.

The newspaper appealed, contending the decision would result in a deluge of legal actions by public officials, businesses and others contending that a news article cost them some prospective political or economic advantage.

Monday’s ruling by the high court upheld the New York Times, with four of the justices agreeing in a majority opinion that, under the state and federal constitutions, an allegedly injurious statement on which the suit is based--in this instance, the best-seller list--must specifically refer to, or be “of and concerning” the plaintiff before he can win.

The right to a free press protects a newspaper from suits by someone like Blatty, who was neither named nor criticized by the Times in its listing, the majority said.

“To allow a plaintiff who is not identified, either expressly or by clear implication, to institute such an action poses an unjustifiable threat to society,” Justice Stanley Mosk wrote in an opinion joined by Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and Justices Cruz Reynoso and Edward A. Panelli.

The requirement that the statement at issue specify or clearly implicate the plaintiff, said Mosk, “serves to immunize a kind of statement which, though it can cause hurt to an individual, is deemed too important to the vigor and openness of public discourse in a free society to be discouraged.”

In a separate opinion, Justice Joseph R. Grodin, joined by Justices Allen E. Broussard and Malcolm M. Lucas, agreed that Blatty’s suit should be rejected because there was no showing the newspaper intentionally misrepresented its survey of book sales in order to hurt the author financially.

But the court majority went too far in its holding, Grodin said, and should have permitted such suits when a plaintiff could prove a media defendant knowingly published false information to inflict financial injury. For example, a paper that substituted one of its own books in the listing for a legitimate best-seller should be subject to suit, Grodin said.

Bird, Grodin and Reynoso, denied confirmation by the voters last November, are to leave the court Jan. 5.

Richard P. Levy of Los Angeles, an attorney representing the newspaper, said he was “gratified” by the court’s ruling. He said it was consistent with past decisions protecting First Amendment rights.

Counsel for Blatty was not immediately available for comment.

The case arose after Blatty filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court when the book failed to make the weekly list the New York Times says is based on computer processed sales figures from 2,000 bookstores in the United States.

Later, “Legion” made the list for one week, placing 15th.

The trial judge dismissed the suit. But the Court of Appeal reinstated it, holding that Blatty should be given a chance to show the paper falsely represented the list was accurate and unbiased.

The justices concluded, however, that the suit was barred by the free-press guarantees of both the U.S. and California constitutions.

Blatty failed even to contend that the list referred to or reasonably implicated him or his novel, Mosk wrote.

Further, Mosk said, the paper could not be accused of printing a falsehood, because it never said its list was an accurate compilation of actual sales, but instead said the list was “based on” sales from a “sample” of bookstores.