After West's election, Thomson ran columns asserting that before the election West had opposed a proposal that the town should purchase a municipal power system, but that he changed his position after he was elected. The plaintiff must also prove damages unless the defamatory statements are defamatory per se. Benjamin has a Bachelors in philosophy and a Master's in humanities. Even assuming that investigations by the police and the medical examiner are official proceedings, the column does not purport to report about those proceedings. Naturally, with such a well-known figure, the truth quickly came out. Rather, we conclude only that it is capable of having that meaning. Consumer Law See Neely, 418 S.W.3d at 72. Constr., L.P. v. Underwriters at Lloyd's London, 327 S.W.3d 118, 127 (Tex.2010) (citing dictionaries as aids to interpreting an insurance policy). According to an opinion from the Texas Supreme Court that reinstated a lower court ruling that favored the Morning News, the Tatums contend their son showed no sign of mental illness or. In his affidavit, Blow said that he wrote the column to express his opinion that it is troubling that society allows suicide to remain cloaked in secrecy and deception, and that secrecy about suicide leaves us greatly underestimating the danger of it. He also testified by deposition that if he discovered a deception, a misleading obituary, that's fair game for commentary. Additionally, Julie Hersh testified by deposition that she met with Blow before he published the column and that they were both outraged by the lack of discussion about suicide. featuring summaries of federal and state As stated in their brief, their DTPA claims stem from DMN's alleged practices and deception surrounding its sale of obituary services to the Tatums. They argue that the information DMN failed to disclose was Mr. at 47. Accordingly, because there is no evidence of a public controversy that could make the Tatums limited-purpose public figures, we conclude that the Tatums are private figures for purposes of this summary judgment appeal. Constitutional Law 94 S.W.3d at 583. But it's such a missed opportunity to educate.. Thus, unlike the statement, In my opinion Mayor Jones is a liar, the statement, In my opinion Mayor Jones shows his abysmal ignorance by accepting the teachings of Marx and Lenin, would not be actionable. at 571; see also Einhorn v. LaChance, 823 S.W.2d 405, 411 (Tex.App.Houston [1st Dist.] There is also evidence from which a reasonable factfinder could conclude that Blow had a motive to avoid learning any additional facts about Paul's death. The official Dallas Morning News Twitter account. The case of Laird v. Tatum raised questions about the use of surveillance by the military and how it might affect the First. Oddly, it was considered an embarrassing way to die. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. at 62; McIlvain v. Jacobs, 794 S.W.2d 14, 15 (Tex.1990). Our ePaper and live News feed are now together in one app. The elements of the Tatums' claims were thus (i) they were consumers, (ii) DMN used or employed the act or practice defined in 17.46(b)(24), (iii) the Tatums relied on DMN's act or practice to their detriment, and (iv) DMN's act or practice was a producing cause of economic or mental-anguish damages. The Tatums also filed copies of a number of emails bearing on the subject. Based on the above, we conclude that the expert affidavits are not speculative and the trial court did not err by overruling appellees' objections. 07060041CV, 2007 WL 1098476, at *4 (Tex.App.Amarillo Apr. at 122627. Bentley, 94 S.W.3d at 591; see also N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 27980 (1964). Because the evidence raises a genuine fact issue that the column's gist was neither true nor substantially true, appellees' traditional and no-evidence summary judgment grounds addressing truth and substantial truth cannot support the trial court's judgment. I understand why people don't include it, she told me. The Tatums argue that [t]he false gist of the Column is that [they] dishonestly characterized their son's death in the Obituary as a means to shroud his suicide in secrecy. The first question is whether an ordinarily intelligent person could construe the column as conveying that gist. Finally, appellees cite West v. Thomson Newspapers, 872 P.2d 999 (Utah 1994). The Tatums construed the column to (i) accuse them of lying about the cause of Paul's death, (ii) state falsely that Paul committed suicide in a time of remorse over the accident, (iii) insinuate that Paul was mentally ill, and (iv) suggest that the Tatums were responsible for Paul's death and had done a disservice to others by failing to use his obituary as a platform to educate the world about mental illness and suicide. Add . When reviewing a traditional summary judgment for a defendant, we determine whether the defendant conclusively disproved an element of the plaintiff's claim or conclusively proved every element of an affirmative defense. 4. of Tex., Inc. v. Tex. Nevertheless, the Milkovich Court concluded that calling someone a liar and accusing someone of perjury are both sufficiently verifiable to support a defamation claim. Are the column's statements about the Tatums nonactionable opinions? Here, the column did not mention Paul or the Tatums by name. Prac. His testimony demonstrates his training and expertise in the field of accident reconstruction. But the standards governing the law of defamation are not among them. The court then vacated its judgment and stayed the case pending the resolution of a defamation case then pending in the Texas Supreme Court. The court also dismissed DMN's counterclaim with prejudice. A statement does not have to refer to the plaintiff by name, however, if people who know and are acquainted with the plaintiff reasonably understand from reading the statement that it referred to the plaintiff. Main, 348 S.W.3d at 395; see also Houseman v. Publicaciones Paso del Norte, S.A., 242 S.W.3d 518, 525 (Tex.App.El Paso 2007, no pet.) Bus. And the secrecy surrounding suicide leaves us greatly underestimating the danger there. See Civ. Appellees' contrary argument fails on the first prong we referenced abovethe existence of a public controversy for the Tatums to participate in. court opinions. Utilities Law Trusts & Estates Based on his investigation and experience, Kass concluded that Paul sustained a brain injury in the auto accident and that Paul would not have committed suicide but for the car accident and brain injury. 05-14-01017-CV JOHN TATUM AND MARY ANN TATUM, Appellants . The Tatums wrote an obituary for Paul and paid DMN to publish the obituary in the Dallas Morning News newspaper. We're open these days with just about every form of death except onesuicide. 73.002(b)(2). Professional Malpractice & Ethics We conclude that there was more than a scintilla of evidence showing more than a mere failure to conduct a reasonable investigation. In this libel-by-implication case, a column written by Steve Blow and published by The Dallas Morning News (collectively, Petitioners) was reasonably capable of meaning that John and Mary Ann Tatum acted deceptively and that the accusation of deception was reasonably capable of defaming the Tatums. Id. In this context, negligence has two prongs: (1) the publisher knew or should have known that the defamatory statement was false, and (2) the factual misstatement's content was such that it would warn a reasonably prudent editor or broadcaster of its defamatory potential. c.Was the column's gist substantially true? 17.50(a)(1)(A)(B). Id. Believing that Paul's suicide was caused by a brain injury he sustained in the earlier automobile accident, the Tatums stated in the obituary that Paul died as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident. The obituary was published on May 21, 2010. Supreme Court of Texas. Hepps ensures that a statement of opinion relating to matters of public concern which does not contain a provably false factual connotation will receive full constitutional protection. at 6768. A reasonable juror could conclude that Blow was not honest when he testified about the sources of his information about Paul's death. at 187. Public Benefits If the plaintiff is a public official or a public figure, the required culpability is elevated from negligence to actual malice; that is, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant published the defamatory statement with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard as to whether it was true or false. Blow, who did not contact the Tatums before writing his column, called for the public to more openly discuss mental illness, which is often a factor in suicides. Environmental Law denied). Because these privileges are affirmative defenses, see Denton Publ'g Co. v. Boyd, 460 S.W.2d 881, 882, 885 (Tex.1970) (interpreting predecessor statute to 73.002), appellees' summary judgment motion had to conclusively prove their elements to prevail.6. Appellees also argue that the column cannot reasonably be read to suggest that Paul had a mental illness. We next ask whether there was evidence that the column's gist was false. These cases are distinguishable because the case before us does not turn on the verifiability of the column's statement about the cause of Paul's suicide. Specifically, the first affidavit is by Dr. Robert Cargill, who possesses a Ph.D. in bioengineering. 700 the dvd+ dvd+ monkey monkey the yellow yellow We construe an allegedly defamatory publication as a whole, in light of the surrounding circumstances, based on how a person of ordinary intelligence would perceive it. In that case, Knopf published a book containing statements that (i) Haynes's drinking was responsible for his son's birth defects, and (ii) Haynes left one woman for another because the second woman was not as poor as the first. "Walking along side you" | 24 Hour Line: 086 111 1380 | Essential Service provider, available to families during COVID 19 LOCK DOWN See id. As to whether Blow misrepresented his investigation and the sources of his information, Blow testified by deposition that he learned the information about Paul's death that he used in his column from one of his colleagues at DMN. Become a business insider with the latest news. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Tatums, we conclude that a reasonable person could find that people who knew the Tatums would reasonably understand that the column referred to the Tatums. See Waste Mgmt. at 62 ([S]tatements that are not verifiable as false cannot form the basis of a defamation claim.); see also Bentley v. Bunton, 94 S.W.3d 561, 57985 (Tex.2002) (accusations that a judge was corrupt were sufficiently verifiable to constitute actionable statements of fact). And the gist includes an implication that the Tatums' motive for deceiving readers was to conceal that Paul had suffered from a mental illness that the Tatums failed to confront. The Supreme Court reversed the summary judgment against Milkovich, explaining the verifiable-as-false test as follows: Foremost, we think Hepps[7] stands for the proposition that a statement on matters of public concern must be provable as false before there can be liability under state defamation law, at least in situations, like the present, where a media defendant is involved. To the contrary, the column's tone is generally sober, and it purports to be grounded in factual details such as the circumstances of Pillsbury's and Paul's deaths, data about the prevalence of suicide among young people, and Julie Hersh's public efforts to reduce the shame and stigma surrounding mental illness. endstream endobj startxref There was also evidence that Blow did not adhere to his usual practice of investigation when he wrote the column. The trial court granted summary judgment for Petitioners. 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