Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc. v. Connaughton/Concurrence Scalia

by Antonin Scalia

Justice SCALIA, concurring in the judgment.

I agree with the Court's disposition of this case, and with its resolution of the second legal issue on which we granted certiorari, namely whether "highly unreasonable conduct constituting an extreme departure from ordinary standards of investigation and reporting" is alone enough to establish (rather than merely evidence of) the malice necessary to assess liability in public figure libel cases.

I disagree, however, with the Court's approach to resolving the first and most significant question upon which certiorari was granted, which was the following:

"Whether, in a defamation action instituted by a candidate for public office, the First and Fourteenth Amendments obligate an appellate court to conduct an independent review of the entire factual basis for a jury's finding of actual malice-a review that examines both the subsidiary facts underlying the jury's finding of actual malice and the jury's ultimate finding of actual malice itself."

That question squarely raised the conflict that the Sixth Circuit perceived it had created with an earlier decision of the District of Columbia Circuit, en banc, concerning the requirement we set forth in Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U.S. 485, 104 S.Ct. 1949, 80 L.Ed.2d 502 (1984), that judges "exercise independent judgment" on the question "whether the record establishes actual malice with convincing clarity," id., at 514, 104 S.Ct., at 1967. The nub of the conflict, which is of overwhelming importance in libel actions by public figures, is whether this means, as the Sixth Circuit understood the District of Columbia Circuit to have held in Tavoulareas v. Piro, 260 U.S.App.D.C. 39, 817 F.2d 762 (1987) (en banc), that the trial judge and reviewing courts must make their own "independent" assessment of the facts allegedly establishing malice; or rather, as the Sixth Circuit held here (explicitly rejecting Tavoulareas ), that they must merely make their own "independent" assessment that, assuming all of the facts that could reasonably be found in favor of the plaintiff were found in favor of the plaintiff, clear and convincing proof of malice was established.

Today's opinion resolves this issue in what seems to me a peculiar manner. The Court finds it sufficient to decide the present case to accept, not all the favorable facts that the jury could reasonably have found, but rather only the adequately supported favorable facts that the jury did find. Exercising its independent judgment just on the basis of those facts (and the uncontroverted evidence), it concludes that malice was clearly and convincingly proved. The crucial passage of the Court's opinion is the following:

"Given the trial court's instructions, the jury's answers to the three special interrogatories, and an understanding of those facts not in dispute, it is evident that the jury must have rejected (1) the testimony of petitioner's witnesses that Stephens was not contacted simply because Connaughton failed to place her in touch with the newspaper; (2) the testimony of Blount that he did not listen to the tapes simply because he thought they would provide him with no new information; and (3) the testimony of those Journal News employees who asserted that they believed Thompson's allegations were substantially true. When these findings are considered alongside the undisputed evidence, the conclusion that the newspaper acted with actual malice inextricably follows." Ante, at 690-691 (emphasis in original).

This analysis adopts the most significant element of the Sixth Circuit's approach, since it accepts the jury's determination of at least the necessarily found controverted facts, rather than making an independent resolution of that conflicting testimony. Of course the Court examines the evidence pertinent to the jury determination-as a reviewing court always must-to determine that the jury could reasonably have reached that conclusion. But the Court does not purport to be exercising its own independent judgment as to whether Stephens was not contacted simply because Connaughton failed to place her in touch with the newspaper, whether Blount did not listen to the tapes because he thought they would provide no new information, or whether the Journal News employees believed Thompson's allegations to be substantially true.

While I entirely agree with this central portion of the Court's analysis, I do not understand the Court's approach in conducting that analysis only on the basis of the three factual determinations the Court selects. To begin with, I am dubious of the Court's conclusion that the jury must have made all three of those findings in order to bring in the verdict that it did under the judge's instructions, and in order to answer as it did the only relevant "special interrogatory," which was "Do you unanimously find by clear and convincing proof that the publication in question was published with actual malice?" It seems to me, for example, that even if one believed Blount's explanation of why he did not listen to the tapes, it would still be reasonable to find (and I would find) clear and convincing proof of malice from the utterly inexplicable failure to interview Stephens plus the uncontroverted evidence.

More important, however, even if each of these factual findings happened to be necessary to the verdict and interrogatory response, I see no reason to make them the exclusive focus of our analysis, instead of consulting (as the Sixth Circuit did, and as courts invariably do when reviewing jury verdicts) all the reasonably supported findings that the jury could have made. It may well be true that "we need only consider those factual findings that were essential to the jury verdict" in the sense that referring to those alone is enough to decide the case-i.e., those alone establish clear and convincing proof of malice. But one could pick out any number of categories of permissible jury findings that would meet that test. For example, it might be true that we could find the requisite proof of malice by considering, not all the evidence in its light most favorable to the plaintiff, but only that evidence produced by a particular witness. We could then say "we need only consider the findings the jury might have made based on the testimony of Mr. Smith to decide this case." I see no more logic in limiting the inquiry the way the Court has done than in limiting it in this latter fashion.

That can be made plain by applying the Court's approach to a situation in which the facts essential to the jury verdict happen not to establish clear and convincing proof of malice. Assume a case in which there are innumerable controverted allegations, dozens of which, if the plaintiff's version is credited, would suffice to establish malice; but in which only one controverted allegation-the defendant's allegation that he knew firsthand the truth of the libelous charges-could not possibly have been found against the plaintiff if the jury was to come in with the verdict that it did. If we applied today's analysis to that situation, we would then proceed to ask whether the fact that the defendant did not know firsthand the truth of the charges, and that he lied about that, is alone enough to establish clear and convincing proof of malice. It clearly would not be. Surely, however, we would not reverse the judgment for the plaintiff, when dozens of other disputed contentions which the jury might have resolved in the laintiff's favor would establish clear and convincing proof. We would, as the Sixth Circuit did, assume that all those disputes were resolved in the plaintiff's favor-unless, of course, we again devised some nonfunctional category of the remaining disputes that we could look to, perhaps those pertaining to testimony by Mr. Smith.

In sum, while the Court's opinion is correct insofar as the critical point of deference to jury findings is concerned, I see no basis for consulting only a limited number of the permissible findings. I would have adopted the Sixth Circuit's analysis in its entirety, making our independent assessment of whether malice was clearly and convincingly proved on the assumption that the jury made all the supportive findings it reasonably could have made. That is what common-law courts have always done, and there is ultimately no alternative to it.

Notes