Summary
In Pritchard v. Herald Co., 120 A.D.2d 956, 956 (N.Y. App. Div. 1986), a New York appellate court held that it was not defamatory to describe someone as a "controversial" "black activist," because "the current of contemporary public opinion" does not expose the person to public hatred or contempt.
Summary of this case from Susan B. v. DriehausOpinion
May 23, 1986
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Onondaga County, Hayes, J.
Present — Dillon, P.J., Callahan, Denman, Pine and Balio, JJ.
Order unanimously affirmed, with costs. Memorandum: Plaintiff appeals from an order granting summary judgment dismissing his libel complaint and denying a cross motion for discovery and related relief. The complaint alleges that an article published on May 20, 1984 expressly and impliedly stated that plaintiff was being removed from a leadership position in a quasi-official body because of incompetence, inability or misconduct, and that plaintiff was a contentious person who advocated the use of force in racial conflicts.
"It is for the court in the first instance to determine whether the printed words are susceptible to the particular defamatory meaning ascribed to them by plaintiff (Aronson v Wiersma, 65 N.Y.2d 592; Tracy v Newsday, Inc., 5 N.Y.2d 134). The words must be given their ordinary meaning and viewed in the context without straining to find them either libelous or nonlibelous (James v Gannett Co., 40 N.Y.2d 415; Cohn v National Broadcasting Co., 50 N.Y.2d 885, cert denied 449 U.S. 1022; November v Time Inc., 13 N.Y.2d 175)." (Di Bernardo v Tonawanda Pub. Corp., 117 A.D.2d 1009, 1010.)
The article reported an impending change in the leadership of the Mayor's Conference on Minority Affairs and stated that the Syracuse Mayor has offered a leadership role to the leader of a traditional black organization in order to entice various traditional minority groups and organizations to join the Conference. There was no assertion of incompetence, inability or misconduct on the part of plaintiff. Further, describing plaintiff as "controversial" or a "black activist", when judged by the temper of the times and the current of contemporary public opinion (see, Mencher v Chesley, 297 N.Y. 94, 100; Schermerhorn v Rosenberg, 73 A.D.2d 276, 284-285), does not arouse in the mind of the average person in the community an evil or unsavory opinion nor expose plaintiff to public hatred, contempt, or aversion (Rinaldi v Holt, Rinehart Winston, 42 N.Y.2d 369, 379, cert denied 434 U.S. 969). Plaintiff's claim that the article implies negative characteristics harmful to his reputation lacks merit. If the words expressed in an article are not capable of the defamatory meaning ascribed to them by plaintiff, innuendo cannot enlarge upon their plain meaning to convey an import that was not expressed (Tracy v Newsday, Inc., supra, p 136). Summary judgment was, therefore, properly granted.