Supreme Court to Rule on Libel Protection for Public Interest Reports

The state Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether news organizations, when reporting matters of public interest, are entitled to special protection from libel suits by private individuals.

The case, involving two allegedly defamatory consumer affairs reports by a Sacramento television station, could have broad impact in California on the competing rights to free press and to protection of reputation.

Under U.S. Supreme Court rulings, public figures--such as government officials--bear the heavy burden of showing that a false and defamatory report was made with knowing or reckless disregard for the truth.

Left Up to States

But the burden of proof for private individuals who inadvertently become involved in public affairs has been left largely to the states to determine. In California, the legal balance between protecting private reputations and encouraging public dialogue remains largely unsettled in such cases.

The state Supreme Court, in a unanimous order filed Thursday, said it will review the question of whether a “public interest privilege” applies to the news media in libel suits by private citizens.

The attorney for the television station welcomed the justices’ action, saying he hopes the court will grant the same broad protections from suits by private individuals that the law already provides in suits by public figures.

L. Thomas Wagner, a Sacramento lawyer representing the station, said such protections could help news agencies win dismissals of unwarranted lawsuits before they face costly and time-consuming trials.

“This is an issue of extreme importance to the news media,” he said. “If these kinds of cases can’t be resolved by courts before trial, there really is a chilling effect on the media.”

However, Brenton A. Bleier, a Sacramento attorney representing a home improvement contractor suing the television station in the case, expressed hope that the court will not make it more difficult for private individuals to sue when their reputations have been wrongly damaged.

‘Right to Their Reputations’

“It’s well-accepted that people have a right to their reputation--to be free from false statements,” he said. “The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed a certain amount of reputational damage in order to maintain a public dialogue . . . but only when it involves public figures.”

Bleier said the case will help clarify the difficult question raised in such suits of what constitutes a matter of general or public interest. State appellate courts have held that fraudulent automotive repair practices are of public concern but said in another case that “mere general or idle curiosity” did not justify special protections to an article about alleged gangsters.

The case the justices will review arose from reports aired in 1984 on the “Call 3 for Action” portion of news broadcasts by station KCRA. The reports alleged shoddy work by a local contractor known as the Energy Savers and warned viewers, “Don’t let it happen to you.”

The operator of the firm, Shirley Brown, sued the station for slander, claiming that statements of faulty repairs were false and that the station failed to contact her to get her side of the story.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge granted the station’s request to dismiss the case. But last February, a state Court of Appeal reinstated the suit, saying there was sufficient evidence that the reports were broadcast recklessly to warrant trial.

The appeal panel held that the station’s reports, broadcast in the public-service segment of the news programs, did involve a matter of public interest. The court noted that the contractor was participating in a federally funded program and that the reports were aired to an audience that would be interested in substandard work by a firm receiving public funds.

‘Implied Malice’

But the panel said that while the station had not acted with “hatred or ill will” toward the contractor, there was enough evidence of “implied malice” to take the case to a jury. The alleged failure of the station to contact the firm during a two-year investigation “indicates negligence, at the very least,” the panel noted.

The station, in an appeal to the state Supreme Court, argued that the firm should be required to show “clear and convincing” evidence of deliberate or reckless disregard for the truth--the same high burden of proof that would be imposed if the suit were brought by a public figure.