Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co.
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Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. | |
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Subsequent | Settled out of court |
Holding | |
The First Amendment does not require a separate "opinion" privilege limiting the application of state defamation laws. Supreme Court of Ohio reversed and remanded. | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinions | |
Majority | Rehnquist, joined by White, Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy |
Dissent | Brennan, joined by Marshall |
Laws applied | |
U.S. Const. amend. I |
Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990), was a
The case took a long time to come before the court, which twice declined to hear it. When it finally did, the justices suggested they would clarify once and for all the extent to which opinions could be expressed without fear of being held libellous. The actual decision, however, was regarded as having confused the issue somewhat instead. Several state courts have responded by recognizing an opinion privilege in some way as part of their state constitution.
Background of the case
On February 8, 1974, a key
, fierce rivals at the time, degenerated into a brawl in which first the Maple Heights team, then its fans, attacked the Mentor squad. Several members were hospitalized as a result.Allegedly, many present believed that Mike Milkovich, then the Maple Heights High School coach, had played a large part in causing the brawl by publicly criticizing decisions made by referees and inciting the crowd. At a hearing shortly afterwards, the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) put the school on probation for a year and ruled Maple Heights ineligible for the next year's state tournament.
Several wrestlers and their parents filed suit in the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin County, where cases against the state are commonly heard. Petitioners argued that OHSAA had denied them due process. After a hearing that November in which both Milkovich and the school district's superintendent, H. Donald Scott, testified again, the court granted a temporary injunction against OHSAA's ruling.
The following day, Ted Diadiun, a sports writer and columnist for the News Herald, Mentor's daily newspaper, wrote about the decision. He had been at the original wrestling match and the OHSAA hearing but not at the court hearing. He did, however, quote OHSAA commissioner Harold Meyer as saying that "some of the stories told to the judge sounded pretty darned unfamiliar.... It certainly sounded different from what they told us" but without citing any specific examples.
On that apparent basis, his column took it as a given that Milkovich and Scott had lied to the court and took them to task for demonstrating to their students that they could do so with impunity in order to avoid accountability for their actions. "Anyone who attended the meet," Diadiun wrote, "whether he be from Maple Heights, Mentor, or impartial observer, knows in his heart that Milkovich and Scott lied at the hearing after each having given his solemn oath to tell the truth."
Litigation history
Milkovich filed suit, alleging that the suggestion that he had lied had
On remand, the trial court issued summary judgment in favor of the respondents, this time citing Gertz in ruling the original column to be constitutionally protected opinion. In addition, it said, Milkovich had failed, as a public figure, to establish a prima facie claim of actual malice. The appeals court upheld the trial court once again, only to be reversed by the Ohio Supreme Court. Another certiorari petition made its way to Washington in 1984, and met with the same fate as its predecessor.
In the interim, Scott had been pursuing a separate action which the Ohio Supreme Court considered in 1986. In ruling the column to be opinion, OSC applied a four-pronged test which had come out of Ollman v. Evans, a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in determining whether Diadiun's column was opinion or fact for purposes of libel law. It announced also that it was reconsidering its decision in Milkovich. The trial court again granted summary judgment, the appeals court upheld and the state Supreme Court, as it had the first time around, dismissed the appeal. This time the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.
The court's decision
Observers and First Amendment law experts had expected that the Court would formalize its observation in Gertz that "there is no such thing as a false idea" into an opinion privilege against libel claims, expanding the traditional fair comment defense. They were taken aback when it declined to, instead suggesting that the constitutional safeguards it had already erected were enough to protect statements of opinion from being actionable.
Majority opinion
After recounting the case history and the court's recent rulings in libel cases,
Dissent
"The majority does not rest its decision today on any finding that the statements at issue explicitly state a false and defamatory fact. Nor could it," wrote
Nonetheless, even in arguing for Diadiun's right to express such a bold opinion without fear of being sued, he chastised the columnist for his "naïveté" in assuming that since the court overturned OHSAA, Milkovich had therefore lied under oath. "To anyone who understands the patois of the legal profession, there is no reason to assume — from the court's decision — that such testimony must have been given," since the Franklin County judge could have overturned the athletic association's decision for a number of reasons and the column itself notes the denial of due process as the reason.[7]
Subsequent jurisprudence
Lower courts had been relying on their standards for distinguishing expressions of opinion from statements of fact in defamation actions for several years'[citation needed] Having expected Milkovich to give them some test or standard to apply, they were caught off guard when the Supreme Court backed off.[citation needed].
Since Milkovich, there have been no significant defamation rulings by the court. Free-speech advocates,[who?] however, continue to press and hope for the recognition of an opinion privilege.
In 2004, the court denied certiorari in Santa Barbara News-Press v. Ross, a case in which the appellant sought to establish that corporate executives such as the appellee were automatically public figures.
State interpretations
State courts responded by filling in the gap, grounding an opinion privilege in their own constitutions. New York's ruled that as long as an opinion relied on accurately stated and reported facts, it was not actionable as long as the content, tone and apparent purpose of the statement distinguished it as opinion. This privilege does not apply, however, to any accusations of criminal or illegal activity.
Texas applied Milkovich more literally[citation needed]. Prior to it, only statements of fact were actionable. Afterwards[citation needed], opinions that imply false statements of objective fact were held by at least one court to be unprotected, and it declared that there was no opinion privilege in Texas.
In 1991, a California appellate court, in the case Kahn v. Bower, rejected the claim that a "categorical exception for opinion exists independently under California law".[10]
Disposition
After the Supreme Court ruled against them, the Journal Co. reached an out of court settlement with Milkovich, who had by that time retired.[citation needed] Milkovich and Diadiun have since reconciled and appeared together at panel discussions of the case and First Amendment law.[citation needed]
Diadiun remains in
See also
- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 497
- List of United States Supreme Court cases
- Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume
- List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Rehnquist Court
Notes
- ^ Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990).
- ^ Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323 (1974).
- ^ Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 18.
- ^ Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 21.
- ^ Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 28 (Brennan, J., dissenting).
- ^ Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 30 (Brennan, J., dissenting).
- ^ a b Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 35 (Brennan, J., dissenting).
- Ill. App. Ct.2008).
- ^ Rose, 889 N.E.2d at 648 (quoting Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 21).
- Ca. App. Ct.1991) ("Respondents suggest that a categorical exemption for opinion exists independently under California law. We find no support for this proposition in the cited defamation cases.").
- ^ Diadiun, Ted (January 31, 2015). "After a decade as reader rep, it's time to hear Ted Diadiun's opinion". The Plain Dealer. Retrieved October 30, 2015.
References
- Norm Goldstein, ed., ISBN 0-465-00488-1.
- June 1, 2004. High court won't hear newspaper's appeal in libel case, Associated Press.
Further reading
- Kathryn Dix Sowle, A Matter of Opinion: Milkovich Four Years Later, 3 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 467 (1994).
- M. Eric Eversole, Eight Years After Milkovich: Applying A Constitutional Privilege for Opinions Under the Wrong Constitution, 31 Ind. L. Rev.1107 (1998).
- Marshall S. Shapo, Editorial: Fact/Opinion = Evidence/Argument, 91 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1108 (1997).
- Jeffrey E. Thomas, A Pragmatic Approach to the Meaning of Defamation Law, 34 Wake Forest L. Rev. 333 (1999).
External links
- Text of Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990) is available from: Cornell CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress Oyez (oral argument audio)
- First Amendment Center entry on Milkovich at the Library of Congress Web Archives (archived 2004-12-21)