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Full Opinion
The libel action underlying this appeal stems from the publication of an article in the September 10, 1979 edition of the appellant’s newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. See Appendix. The suit was tried by the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County sitting by agreement of the parties and counsel in neighboring Westmoreland County. The Honorable Gilfert M. Mihalich, President Judge of Westmoreland County, presided by special appointment. Following a lengthy trial, the jury returned a general verdict in favor of the appellees, Richard DiSalle and Joan DiSalle, his wife, in the combined amount of $210,000.00 compensatory and $2,000,000.00 punitive damages. The Post-Gazette filed timely motions for post-trial relief, which the trial court denied after a thorough and well reasoned discussion of the case. Here the paper seeks, in the alternative, a judgment non obstante veredicto, a new trial, or a remittitur of damages.
The appellant urges upon us three categories of error committed by the trial court which entitle it to the relief sought: (1) error concerning the constitutional “actual malice” standard to be applied; (2) error concerning the award of compensatory damages; and (3) error concerning the award of punitive damages.
The article in question appeared in the “City/Area” section of the Post-Gazette, a paper with a daily readership of
Mr. Porter’s first stop, and ultimately his principal source of information in this investigation, was Robert Ciaffoni. From Ciaffoni, Porter learned that the family dispute focused on the authenticity of the decedent’s 1968 will, which had been admitted to probate in 1974. He also learned that Ciaffoni, as well as other family members, had taken the contest to the courts of Washington County by filing an appeal from probate, that the matter had been tried before the Honorable Earl S. Keim, specially appointed to preside over the contest, and that Judge Keim had upheld the validity of the probated document six months before Ciaffoni contacted the newspaper, and nearly a year before the article was published.
In this context, Richard DiSalle, a local attorney who had served for eight years on the trial bench of Washington County, and who later filled a vacancy on the commonwealth court bench by appointment of Governor Shapp, was alleged to have conspired with Ciaffoni’s sister, Elizabeth Cowden, to produce the fraudulent will. After reviewing an early draft of Porter’s story, Warner noted what he considered to be a hole in that it did not give any explanation why DiSalle would involve himself in such a conspiracy. In an attempt to address this concern, Porter included in later drafts material from a deposition taken of Robert Ciaffoni in anticipation of the will contest, wherein Ciaffoni was asked about prior statements he had made concerning the relationship between DiSalle and Mrs. Cowden. In the final article, this material, by then reduced to a single quote, left the reader with the impression that the reason for DiSalle’s involvement in the conspiracy was a meretri
These two allegations made by Robert Ciaffoni, that is, that Richard DiSalle participated in a fraudulent act and that he had an illicit affair with a co-conspirator, contained as they were in an article that did not principally focus on the will contest which had occurred in Washington County much earlier, form the basis of this libel action.
I
ACTUAL MALICE
The Post-Gazette first challenges the definition of actual malice applied by the trial court, asserting that a different standard should have been used under the facts of this case. Because the paper does not also allege that the evidence was insufficient to prove actual malice as the trial court defined it, we are faced with the single question whether the trial court committed an error of law in defining actual malice as it did. Before reaching this issue, however, we must first determine the propriety of applying the actual malice standard at all.
A. Applicability of Actual Malice
The requirement of proof of actual malice in certain defamation actions, discussed more extensively infra, was first introduced into the constitutional arena, where the tension between the freedoms of the First Amendment and the constraints of state defamation law is manifest, by the Supreme Court in the landmark case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964). There, the Court cleared the ground and laid the cornerstone of this coliseum for the stated purpose of more effectively limiting “a state’s power to award damages for libel in actions brought by public officials against critics of their official conduct." Id. at 283, 84 S.Ct. at 727 (emphasis added).
However, as is often the case, in the years which followed the Supreme Court’s decision in New York Times, factual scenarios arose which tested the high court’s statement of the rule. In Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64, 85 S.Ct. 209, 13 L.Ed.2d 125 (1964), the Supreme Court reversed a Louisiana Supreme Court decision which refused to apply the New York Times rule in a prosecution for criminal defamation. The state court reasoned that the expressions at issue did not fall within the purview of criticism of official conduct when the attack was on the personal integrity of eight state trial judges and not on the way any one of them conducted his court when in session.
Justice Brennan, in his opinion for the court, found this reasoning defective:
The public-official rule protects the paramount public interest in a free flow of information to the people concerning public officials, their servants. To this end, anything which might touch on an official’s fitness for office is relevant. New personal attributes are more germane to fitness for office than dishonesty, malfeasance, or improper motivation, even though these characteristics may also affect the official’s private character.
Garrison, 379 U.S. at 77, 85 S.Ct. at 217 (footnote omitted).
In Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy, 401 U.S. 265, 91 S.Ct. 621, 28 L.Ed.2d 35 (1971), the Supreme Court was asked to revisit the question of what constitutes “official conduct” in
The court went on to note that,
“[ijndeed, whatever utility the ‘official conduct’ concept may retain with regard to occupants of public office ... it is clearly of little applicability in the context of an election campaign. The principal activity of a candidate in our political system, his ‘office’, so to speak, consists in putting before the voters every conceivable aspect of his public and private life that he thinks may lead the electorate to gain a good impression of him____ And the candidate who vaunts his spotless record and sterling integrity cannot convincingly cry ‘Foul!’ when an opponent or an industrious reporter attempts to demonstrate the contrary. Any test adequate to safeguard First Amendment guarantees in this area must go far beyond the customary meaning of the phrase ‘official conduct.’ ”
Judge DiSalle, at the time the Post-Gazette article was published, was the holder of a position in the public trust and a candidate to continue in that role. This factual situation was presented to the Supreme Court in Ocala Star-Banner Co. v. Damron, 401 U.S. 295, 91 S.Ct. 628, 28 L.Ed.2d 57 (1971), decided on the same day as Roy. In reasserting the position taken in Roy, the court stated “that a charge of criminal conduct against an official or a candidate, no matter how remote in time or place, is always ‘relevant to his fitness for office’ for purposes of applying
Judge DiSalle’s action in libel focused on two statements in the Post-Gazette article, the first asserting that he was a co-conspirator in fraud, and the second attributing his participation in that fraud to an illicit affair with his co-conspirator. Fraud, of course, is a crime and therefore falls squarely within the above-stated rule. Participation in a meretricious affair, while not strictly criminal, does, under the facts of this case, impute an improper motivation, and therefore is relevant to Judge DiSalle’s fitness for office. Accordingly, we conclude that Richard DiSalle was a public official at the time the article was published and that the offending expressions contained thereon related to official conduct. Cf. McLaughlin v. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., 465 Pa. 104, 348 A.2d 376 (1975) (press access to confidential records of a disciplinary proceeding brought against a private lawyer, now in public office, may be limited in spite of the public’s interest in the qualifications of its servants; court distinguished the facts before it from cases like those relied upon here).
B. Actual Malice
It being clear that the DiSalles cannot recover in defamation absent clear and convincing evidence that the Post-Gazette’s allegedly defamatory article was published with actual malice, we must now determine what that term means. At its genesis, the Supreme Court described the publication of material with actual malice as publication “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” New York Times, 376 U.S. at 279-280, 84 S.Ct. at 726. As was true with the meaning of “official conduct” discussed above, the full definition of “actual malice” has awaited case-by-case development. Clearly the first part of the definition, that the information was published with “knowledge that it was false,” does not present a difficulty, for one either knows or does not know that something is not true. It is the concept
In Garrison, the Supreme Court equated reckless disregard with a “high degree of awareness of ... probable falsity.” Garrison, 379 U.S. at 74, 85 S.Ct. at 216. Justice Harlan, in his plurality opinion in Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 87 S.Ct. 1975, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967), noted that “[investigating failures alone [have been] held insufficient to satisfy this standard.” Id. at 153-154, 87 S.Ct. at 1991 (plurality opinion). The Court in St. Amant, supra, noted more expansively that
reckless conduct is not measured by whether a reasonably prudent man would have published, or would have investigated before publishing. There must be sufficient evidence to permit the conclusion that the defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of his publication. Publishing with such doubts shows reckless disregard for truth or falsity and demonstrates actual malice.
St. Amant, 390 U.S. at 731, 88 S.Ct. at 1325.
It is clear, then, that in its development the establishment of actual malice has never strayed far from the question of falsity, and that, for a plaintiff to prevail under this standard, it must be shown that the defendant was certain of that falsity or came close to willfully blinding itself to it. As the Supreme Court noted in Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, 466 U.S. 485, 104 S.Ct. 1949, 80 L.Ed.2d 502 (1984), “there is a significant difference between proof of actual malice and mere proof of falsity.” Id. at 511, 104 S.Ct. at 1965 (footnote omitted). Recognizing that “erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate, and that it must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the ‘breathing space’ that they ‘need ... to survive,’ ” New York Times, 376 U.S. at 271-272, 84 S.Ct. at 721 (citation omitted), the Court promulgated the actual malice standard to define the proper accommodation be
The allocation of this burden to the plaintiff creates the “breathing space” needed to avoid self-censorship by greatly expanding the zone of protected speech. However, the fact that the Supreme Court created a “fault” standard instead of declaring any recovery for defamation unconstitutional “makes irresistible the inference that a significant portion of this speech is beyond the constitutional pale. This observation is almost tautologically true with regard to libels published with ‘actual malice.’ ” Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767, 783, 106 S.Ct. 1558, 1567, 89 L.Ed.2d 783 (1986) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (footnote omitted).
Instantly, the trial court instructed the jury on the issue of actual malice in the following manner:
*521 Actual malice means that the Defendant newspaper knew that the defamatory statement was false when it published it or published the defamatory statements with reckless disregard of whether they were false or true. This means that the evidence must establish by clear and convincing evidence that the defamatory statement or that any defamatory statement was published with the knowledge that it was false or the entertainment of serious doubt as to the truth of the statement. Negligence, carelessness, bad judgment or inaccuracy in the preparation of the article is insufficient to prove actual malice. The mere failure to investigate does not establish reckless disregard, nor does mere negligence, negligent acts constitute actual malice. The reckless conduct which constitutes recklessness or a reckless disregard is not measured by whether a reasonable prudent man would have published or would have investigated before publishing. There must be sufficient evidence to permit the conclusion that the Defendant, in fact, entertained serious doubt as to the truth of the publication. Publications with such doubt show reckless disregard to the truth or falsity, and this demonstrates actual malice.
Actual malice has been interpreted as an extreme departure from the standards of investigation and reporting ordinarily adhered to by responsible publishers. If you find from the evidence that the Defendant newspaper made such an extreme departure, then you may find in considering this evidence that it acted with actual malice.
R.R. at 1736a. This interpretation of actual malice was rendered in Brophy v. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., 281 Pa.Super. 588, 596, 422 A.2d 625, 629 (1980) and relied upon Justice Harlan’s plurality opinion in Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 155, 87 S.Ct. 1975, 1991, 18 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1967) (joined by three other justices). Chief Justice Warren, in a separate opinion, criticized the creation of a standard based on “highly unreasonable conduct” as being a departure from New York Times and too uncertain to aid in the effectuation of its purpose. Curtis Publishing, 388 U.S. at 163, 87 S.Ct. at 1995 (Warren, C.J., concurring in the result). Given the virtual absence of subsequent cases applying this standard, its continued viability is suspect. However, we need not decide whether it was error to so instruct the jury because the appellant does not challenge this aspect of the court’s charge.
C. Time, Inc. v. Pape
The Post-Gazette, however, urges that while this definition of actual malice is correct for the typical defamation case, it ignores certain salient facts in this case which should have put the trial court on a different path away from New York Times in search of the proper definition of actual malice to be applied. In support of this assertion the appellant relies heavily on Time, Inc. v. Pape, 401 U.S. 279, 91 S.Ct. 663, 28 L.Ed.2d 45 (1971).
Pape involved an article published in Time Magazine quoting parts, of the then recently released fifth volume of the United States Commission on Civil Rights Report for
When trial was finally reached, and after all the evidence was in, the District Court granted Time’s motion for a directed verdict. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that it was a jury question whether Time’s failure to attribute the charges against Pape to Monroe rather than the Commission showed actual malice. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals, holding that the directed verdict was properly entered. In supporting this result, the Court repeatedly emphasized that Time was not reporting on the historical events described in “Justice,” but, instead, was reporting on “Justice” itself. Based on this distinction, the Court criticized the lower court’s analysis of the question of malice
*524 A vast amount of what is published in the daily and periodical press purports to be descriptive of what somebody said rather than of what somebody did. Indeed, perhaps the largest share of news concerning the doings of government appears in the form of accounts of reports, speeches, press conferences, and the like. The question of the “truth” of such an indirect newspaper report presents rather complicated problems.
Id. at 285-286, 91 S.Ct. at 637 (emphasis in original).
The Post-Gazette interprets this language to mean that the Supreme Court equates conventional libel cases with eyewitness or direct accounts, and that, in the case of indirect newspaper reports, the Constitution requires the application of a different actual malice standard. In stating this surrogate standard, the Post-Gazette notes that the Pape Court never considered Time’s state of mind with respect to the truth or falsity of Monroe’s allegations; rather the Court concerned itself with the magazine’s understanding of the Commission Report. The Post-Gazette concludes that “[t]he Supreme Court made very clear that where the publication consists of an ‘indirect newspaper report’ of statements made by a third-party source, the publisher’s knowledge of the truth or falsity of the actual facts is not an issue in the ‘actual malice’ determination.” Brief for Appellant at 18.
The proper explanation for the Pape Court’s focus on Time’s understanding of the Commission’s Report, rather than the substance of Monroe’s allegations, is easily found in the nature of the case before it, and far removed from the creation of a hybrid definition of actual malice. Before discussing the law to be applied, the Court noted that the case before it differed in a number of respects from the conventional libel case. The distinction relevant to the present discussion concerned the source of the alleged damage to reputation, the Court observing that it “was not that arising from mere publication, but rather that resulting from attribution of the Monroe accusations to an authoritative official source.” Pape, 401 U.S. at 285, 91 S.Ct. at
It was in this context, then, that the Court explained its earlier statement concerning the difficulties of determining “truth” in indirect newspaper reports:
In light of the totality of what was said in Justice, we cannot agree that when Time failed to state that the Commission in reporting the Monroe incident has technically confined itself to the allegations of a complaint, Time engaged in a “falsification” sufficient in itself to sustain a jury finding of “actual malice.”
* * * # # #
Time’s omission of the word “alleged” amounted to the adoption of one of a number of possible rational interpretations of a document that bristled with ambiguities. The deliberate choice of such an interpretation, though arguably reflecting a misconception, was not enough to create a jury issue of “malice” under New York Times.
Id. at 289-290, 91 S.Ct. at 639. Because Pape shaped his theory on appeal around the allegation that Time defamed him by reporting that the Civil Rights Commission was accusing him of civil rights violations,
From this language, the Post-Gazette attempts to herald the birth of a new definition of actual malice incorporating the concept of rational interpretation into all indirect reporting cases, including the instant case, in lieu of the publisher’s subjective awareness of probable falsity of the underlying facts. No such sweeping effect can be attributed to Pape. There, the defamation complained of was in the underlying facts and was unrelated to the report upon which the publication was based. The Post-Gazette concedes that the defamation in the instant case concerned the statements that Richard DiSalle was a co-conspirator in a fraud and that he was involved in a meretricious affair. Nowhere is it contended that the defamatory injury stemmed from the newspaper’s attribution of the accusations to Robert Ciaffoni or to any other source.
Even without the distinction between Pape and this case, however, we are not persuaded that the language of Pape redefines actual malice under its own facts. In Dickey v. CBS, Inc., 583 F.2d 1221 (3rd Cir.1973), the Third Circuit Court of Appeals was confronted with an argument similar to the one presented here. There, the appellant claimed that Pape stood for the proposition that cases “involving false statements by a third party which [have] been published by the press, are entitled to a unique constitutional analysis.” Id. at 1226. After reviewing the language from Pape which we considered above, the court concluded that “the Supreme Court’s purpose in stating that Time was
That a statement might have been made without actual malice does not demonstrate that it was in fact so made. Ambiguity of a statement’s subject matter may be probative evidence negating a finding of actual malice, see Time, Inc. v. Pape, 401 U.S. 279, 290, ... [91 S.Ct. 633, 639] but it does not call forth a conclusive presumption precluding resort to actual evidence of the defendant’s state of mind.
Id. at 1212 (emphasis in original).
We agree. Surely if the Supreme' Court in Pape had intended to announce a unique constitutional analysis for indirect reporting cases, it would have said so. Instead, it applied the definition of actual malice we stated above, and determined that, “[a]pplying this standard to Time’s interpretation of the Commission Report, it can hardly be said that Time acted in reckless disregard of the truth.” Pape, 401 U.S. at 292, 91 S.Ct. at 640 (emphasis added); see also Time, Inc. v. Firestone, 424 U.S. 448, 459 n. 4, 96 S.Ct. 958, 967, 47 L.Ed.2d 154 (1976) (“Petitioner is incorrect in arguing that a rational interpretation of an ambiguous document is constitutionally protected under ... Pape____ There we were applying the New York Times standard____”).
D. Neutral Reportage
The real thrust of the protection sought by the Post-Gazette, therefore, is not contained in Pape for, as we have demonstrated, that decision does not stand for the proposition asserted
In Edwards, the New York Times reported on a charge contained in the Foreword to the National Audubon Society’s publication, “American Birds.” There, the editor stated that scientists who claimed the use of the insecticide DDT was not adversely affecting the bird populations had been “paid to lie.” A reporter for the Times procured the names of these scientists and published the story. The scientists sued for defamation.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in reversing a judgment for the plaintiffs, reasoned that:
*528 [W]hen a responsible, prominent organization like the National Audubon Society makes serious charges against a public figure, the First Amendment protects the accurate and disinterested reporting of those charges, regardless of the reporter’s private views regarding their validity. See Time, Inc. v. Pape, 401 U.S. 279, ... [91 S.Ct. 633]; Medina v. Time, Inc., 439 F.2d 1129 (1st Cir.1971). What is newsworthy about such accusations is that they were made. We do not believe that the press may be required under the First Amendment to suppress newsworthy statements merely because it has serious doubts regarding their truth.
However, the Post-Gazette has relied exclusively on this theoretical defense in its appeal and we, therefore, will give it further analysis. Having reached this point, we should note how the appellant’s argument limits the issue before us. The Edwards expression of the neutral reportage rule essentially seeks to credential the common law privilege of fair report
We also reassert that the Post-Gazette has not challenged the trial court’s charge on actual malice as defined by New York Times v. Sullivan, supra, and its progeny, nor does it challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding of actual malice in this case. In fact, as will be developed infra, the need for the neutral reportage doctrine is manifest only in those circumstances where the defendant is not already protected by the constitutional requirement for proof of actual malice. Therefore, by relying solely on the neutral reportage doctrine, the Post-Gazette is implicitly admitting the existence of actual malice. The only error alleged is that the trial court failed to consider the neutral reportage doctrine in charging the jury and in deciding the motion for judgment n.o.v. Therefore, the availability of this doctrine to the Post-Gazette is the only remaining liability issue we will address.