Appellees filed a traditional and no-evidence summary judgment motion. Specifically, the Tatums produced evidence that Blow did not contact them to determine the basis for their choice of words in Paul's obituary, and that this failure to contact them was a breach of journalistic standards and the newspaper's own policies. See McConnell v. Southside Indep. The new Dallas Morning News app combines two apps into one. Prac. In D Magazine Partners we said that the supreme court's 2000 Turner opinion suggests that lack of privilege might be an element of a defamation plaintiff's case, while its 2013 Neely opinion indicates that privilege is a defense. Professional Malpractice & Ethics That question remains to be decided by the factfinder. We next consider appellees' summary judgment ground that the column contains only nonactionable opinions. In their second appellate issue, the Tatums contend that the trial court erred by granting summary judgment on their DTPA claims against DMN. But the standards governing the law of defamation are not among them. Speech deals with matters of public concern when it can be fairly considered as relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community or when it is a subject of legitimate news interest; that is, a subject of general interest and of value and concern to the public Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 453 (2011) (internal quotations and citations omitted). Did appellees conclusively prove the official proceeding privilege? See id. denied) (mem.op.) Banking 0 Id. Copyright 2023, Thomson Reuters. Thus, there is evidence that Blow did not investigate this column with the same thoroughness that he did for a previous column and that his explanation for the difference was not true. Their traditional grounds were: The column was not of and concerning the Tatums. Id. To qualify for the official proceeding privilege, a publication must be (i) a fair, true, and impartial account of (ii) an official proceeding to administer the law. We agree with the Tatums on all three points. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among young people (ages 15 to 24) in this country. We remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Corporate Compliance at 72. We also conclude that the evidence raises a genuine fact issue as to actual malice. Id. Turner, 38 S.W.3d at 114. We recently cited Lipsky and placed the burden of proving falsity on the plaintiff in a libel case involving the Texas Citizens Participation Act, Civ. at 100001. Backes, 2015 WL 1138258, at *14. But it's such a missed opportunity to educate.. Id. 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. Prac. Redirecting to https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/news/dallas-cowboys-cut-move-dallas-cowboys-reveal-tyron-smith-contract-plan-change The Supreme Court has held that a defamation plaintiff must prove falsity if (i) the plaintiff is a public figure, or (ii) the defendant is a media defendant and the statement involves a matter of public concern. But averting our eyes from the reality of suicide only puts more lives at risk. at 6667. WFAATV, Inc. v. McLemore, 978 S.W.2d 568, 571 (Tex.1998). They're frustrated when obits don't say. Posted By : / chsaa basketball rule book /; Under :international cultureinternational culture View "Dallas Morning News, Inc. v. Tatum" on Justia Law. Blow explained that he acted differently in investigating this column because he had been told that Paul's family did not want to discuss the matter. Thus, if the column's false gistthat the Tatums wrote Paul's obituary with the intent to deceiveis more damaging to the Tatums' reputations than a true statement would have been, then the gist is not substantially true. Although the West court acknowledged and purported to apply the Milkovich analysis, it disregarded Milkovich's conclusions that accusing a person of being a liar or committing perjury can be sufficiently verifiable to constitute an actionable statement of fact rather than a nonactionable opinion. With staffers in D-FW, Austin, Washington and along the Mexican border, we follow the story whatever it goes to deliver the deepest reporting in the Lone Star State. Dec 19, 2022 "Sooner or later someone is going to have to give this area credit for good coaching, good kids and good programs." Posted By : / thalassery to wayanad ksrtc bus timings /; Under :international norms examplesinternational norms examples (describing general-purpose public figures as those who have achieved such pervasive fame or notoriety as to be public figures for all purposes). Appellees made objections to the affidavits in the trial court, which the trial court overruled. Medical Malpractice A no-evidence summary judgment should be reversed if the evidence is sufficient for reasonable and fair-minded jurors to differ in their conclusions. THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, INC. AND STEVE BLOW v. JOHN TATUM AND MARY ANN TATUM Oral argument was held on January 10, 2018. Waste Mgmt. Thus, Blow had a motive not to learn if there was any explanation for the way the Tatums chose to write the obituary other than the supposed desire to deceive the obituary's readers. Entertainment & Sports Law The trial court granted appellees' amended summary judgment motion, and the Tatums timely filed a notice of appeal. a. Heritage Capital, 436 S.W.3d at 875. To the extent a negligence standard applies, there was no evidence of negligence. The Tatums timely filed a second notice of appeal. One was an email to Blow in which the author wrote, He [Paul] was a popular and accomplished young man and many people understood to whom you referred.. 17.50(a)(1)(A)(B). P. 166a(i). Id. Find an Obituary. Two, they did not mention suicide in the obituary because (i) they believed it would give a false impression that Paul committed suicide as a result of depression or other mental illness and (ii) they did not feel it would honor Paul's memory to include morbid details about his death or to include overly scientific information. We conclude that there was more than a scintilla of evidence showing more than a mere failure to conduct a reasonable investigation. Steve Blow is a columnist for The Dallas Morning News. 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. 73.002(b)(1)(B), and (ii) a reasonable and fair comment on or criticism of a matter of public concern published for general information, id. Because the evidence in Neely raised a genuine fact issue as to whether a news broadcast was substantially true, the court held that the defendants were not entitled to summary judgment based on the fair comment privilege. Did you know that almost twice as many people die each year from suicide as from homicide? They state that several paragraphs separate the column's description of Paul's suicide from its discussion of mental illness. In short, there must first be a controversy before it can be a public one. 17.46(b)(24) (West 2011). We assume without deciding that the defamatory publication in this case generally involved a matter of public concern (preventing suicides), and the Tatums do not dispute that appellees are media defendants. In part, we don't talk about suicide because we don't talk about the illness that often underlies itmental illness. It then denied rehearing on September 28, 2018 File Closed Opinions Issued Case Events Parties and Counsel Opinions May 11, 2018 Avila v. Larrea, 394 S.W.3d 646, 658 (Tex.App.Dallas 2012, pet. Did the Tatums raise a genuine fact issue regarding whether the column was capable of defaming them? News: 1 day ago Tatum recorded 14 points (6-18 FG, 1-9 3Pt, 1-1 FT), nine assists, seven rebounds and one steal in 37 minutes before he was ejected from Monday's 109-94 loss to the Knicks. 07060041CV, 2007 WL 1098476, at *4 (Tex.App.Amarillo Apr. 700 the dvd+ dvd+ monkey monkey the yellow yellow Utilities Law I'm told there was a time when the word cancer was never mentioned. Real Estate Law If a defamatory statement about a private figure involves a matter of public concern, however, and the defendant is a media defendant, the private figure plaintiff must prove actual malice to recover punitive damages. Rather, the Tatums contend that DMN should have disclosed that its columnist, Blow, had previously written columns critical of obituaries that had appeared in the newspaper. 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. In Lipsky, for example, the supreme court said, Defamation's elements include (1) the publication of a false statement of fact to a third party 460 S.W.3d at 593 (emphasis added). Turner, 38 S.W.3d at 115. The Dallas Express a newspaper printed by and for the city's African American community ALSO essential sadly, only the years 1919-1924 have been scanned, here The Jewish Monitor published in Fort Worth, serving the DFW (and Texas) Jewish community, 1919-1921, here The Texas Jewish Post, 1950-2011, here A Dallas County trial court initially dismissed the lawsuit against The News. Contracts We review a summary judgment de novo. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. John and Mary Ann Tatum, whose 17-year-old son shot himself, sued The News and now-retired Metro columnist Steve Blow in 2011 over allegations that the column accused the couple of lying about their son's death. The plaintiff must also prove damages unless the defamatory statements are defamatory per se. Prac. The trial court granted summary judgment for Petitioners. May 11, 2018. Subscribe to Justia's Please try again. Neely, 418 S.W.3d at 66 n.12 (the distinctions among the varying burdens of proof as to truth or falsity are less material at summary judgment). A three-judge district court agreed with the challengers that the map likely violated Section 2 of the VRA, granting a preliminary injunction that ordered the state to draw a new map. 2015 WL 5156908, at *6 n.6. He was born on January 12, 1953 to Albert Tatum and . See DuncanHubert v. Mitchell, 310 S.W.3d 92, 103 (Tex.App.Dallas 2010, pet. Are the column's statements about the Tatums nonactionable opinions? Placing the burden of proving truth or falsity is a complex matter. That night, Paul was involved in a one-car automobile accident. At issue is. Blow testified that he did not review any documents regarding Paul's death or the car accident earlier that night, did not interview anyone with the Dallas Police Department or the medical examiner's office, and did not attempt to contact the Tatums before drafting the column. & Com.Code Ann. 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. But I don't think we should feel embarrassment at all. 2. 2. See id. Next, specifically as to Paul's death, Blow wrote that the paid obituary said Paul died as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident, but Paul's death turned out to have been a suicide. Blow continued, There was a car crash, all right, but death came from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a time of remorse afterward. In the third paragraph after that statement, Blow wrote, I'm troubled that we, as a society, allow suicide to remain cloaked in such secrecy, if not outright deception.. See Tex.R. 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." These affidavits create a reasonable inference that persons who knew the Tatums also knew that the column referred to them. The gist is that they stated a false cause of death, shrouded Paul's suicide in secrecy, intended to mislead and deceive the readers, and may have wanted to conceal Paul's mental illness and their own failure to intervene. For this privilege to apply, however, the law requires that the comment at issue purported to be, and was, only a fair, true and impartial report of what was stated at the meeting, regardless of whether the facts under discussion at such meeting were in fact true, unless the report was made with malice. Denton Publ'g Co., 460 S.W.2d at 883. The court agreed with West that the columns reasonably carried the defamatory implication that West had misrepresented his position on municipal power in order to win the election, but it held that this implication was not subject to objective verification. By statute, a newspaper or other periodical enjoys a privilege against libel actions regarding the publication of certain matters, including (i) a fair, true, and impartial account of an official proceeding to administer the law, Civ. (quoting Bell Publ'g Co. v. Garrett Eng'g Co., 170 S.W.2d 197, 204 (Tex.1943)). 7. The Dallas Morning News published the obituary on May 21, 2010. His testimony demonstrates his training and expertise in the field of accident reconstruction. If you have STRONG suspicions to whom do you turn them over? Id. Appellees further argue that the column does not omit or juxtapose facts in such a way as to make its gist false. And those who did know were already aware of the confusion caused by the obituary. Id. 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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.) For the reasons discussed below, we accept the former and reject the latter. The Tatums' live pleading asserted Libel as count 1 and Libel per se as count 2. Again, a statement is defamatory if it tends to (i) injure the subject's reputation, (ii) expose him to public hatred, contempt, ridicule, or financial injury, or (iii) impeach his honesty, integrity, or virtue. It has received nine Pulitzer Prizes since 1986, as well. 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. 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. Posted By : / seattle kraken hoodie mens /; Under :reflexive pronouns grade 2reflexive pronouns grade 2 They also argue that the column contains only nonactionable rhetorical hyperbole in the course of advocating societal change. The column omits the reasons why the Tatums believed their account of the cause of Paul's suicide was true. Energy, Oil & Gas Law Court. 94 S.W.3d at 583. We conclude that the Tatums adduced no evidence of this requirement. Id. Our work has been recognized with nine Pulitzer Priz Location & Hours 1954 Commerce St Dallas, TX 75201 denied) (objection that opinions are speculative can be raised for the first time on appeal). We resolved that case, however, without deciding the issue because the placement of the burden there would not have affected the outcome.Although Turner contains a passing remark in dicta that a defamation plaintiff must prove that the publication is not privileged, 38 S.W.3d at 115, it does not cite Denton Publishing Co. or hint that it overrules that case's holding that privilege is an affirmative defense, 460 S.W.2d at 885. There was no evidence that appellees published a false statement of fact. By using the statement In my opinion Mayor Jones is a liar as an example of an actionable statement of fact, the Court took the position that such a statement can be proven false. Did appellees conclusively prove the fair comment privilege? We thus conclude that Denton Publishing Co. is still controlling law. In adopting the verifiable as false test in Bentley and Neely, the Texas Supreme Court relied on the United States Supreme Court's decision in Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990). Mar. Paul's friend went in the house and found Paul dazed, confused, irrational, incoherent, and apparently in physical anguish and holding one of the family's firearms. Paul's friend left him alone to tell her mother the situation, and as she left she heard a gunshot. Argued January 10, 2018. See Gilbert Tex. Apply Here at 571; see also Einhorn v. LaChance, 823 S.W.2d 405, 411 (Tex.App.Houston [1st Dist.] Antitrust And, for a matter to be a public controversy, its resolution must affect people beyond its immediate participants. We disagree and affirm the judgment as to those claims.
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