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Court Favors Expression In Rejecting 'False Light'

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 3, 2008

In a victory for free speech and freedom of the press, the Florida Supreme Court in two cases recently made it harder to bring invasion-of-privacy claims against newspapers.

The opinions will protect legitimate reporting and help prevent the proliferation of lawsuits against the media.

The court, observing that most plaintiffs wronged in print can sue for defamation, refused to extend to Floridians the right to sue papers for embarrassing them in public by portraying them in an unflattering way, in a "false light."

Recognizing a false-light cause of action, wrote Justice Barbara Pariente, would allow plaintiffs "to circumvent the strict requirements that have been adopted by statute and developed by case law to ensure the right to freedom of expression."
Florida courts have long recognized a right to privacy, but it has always been a limited right, particularly when it knocks heads with a free speech claim, which is what happened in the two disputed cases.

In the first, Edith Rapp of Delray Beach filed a false-light and defamation lawsuit against Jews for Jesus after her stepson intimated in the organization's newsletter that she had converted to Christianity. The newsletter made its way onto the Internet, where a member of Rapp's family saw it. She claimed the newsletter was wrong and portrayed her in a false light.
Jews for Jesus argued that any reasonable person would not find the description of Rapp to be offensive, one of the standards for filing a defamation or false-light complaint. The trial court agreed and dismissed the case. The Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld the trial court, but sent the case to the Supreme Court with a request that the justices clear up whether false light claims are viable in Florida.

The high court said no, primarily because the requirements for defamation and false light claims largely overlap. More importantly, because the parameters for defining false light are so vague, the court said allowing such a cause of action could have a chilling effect on free speech.

The court then used its decision in Rapp to decide a second case that almost cost the Pensacola News Journal more than $18 million.

A jury awarded the money to Panhandle road contractor Joe Anderson, after the newspaper published a story reporting that while he was on probation for mail fraud in 1988, a conviction later reversed, he accidentally shot and killed his wife. Even though the facts were truthful, Anderson claimed the story made it appear he had gotten away with murder, costing him a $50-million road contract. He sued the paper for libel.

But he filed the lawsuit too late, so he brought a second suit based on false light. Although the jury ruled in his favor, the First District Court of Appeal threw out the verdict saying Anderson filed the lawsuit to beat his statute of limitations problem, and he appealed to the Supreme Court.

Based on its Rapp decision, the high court rejected the appeal, joining a short list of states that say they have never had a civil action for false light.

The decision doesn't spare news organizations from liability for libelous stories or defamatory statements, but they won't have to fear or defend frivolous lawsuits, and the public's right to receive truthful information is preserved.

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