Fodor v. Leeman

Plaintiff appeals from a judgment that dismissed his defamation claim against defendants Wayne Leeman and Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The claim is based on an editorial advertisement that Leeman wrote and Ottaway published in the Medford Mail Tribune that criticized an article that plaintiff had written. We affirm.

Plaintiff is an independent consultant, author, and lecturer. He has published several articles on land use issues. Plaintiff spoke at a conference in 1995 at which he presented an article that he had prepared on the infrastructure cost of a new home. Plaintiff sold copies of the article at the conference and sent copies of it to government agencies and others, inviting comment. In 1996, plaintiff produced another self-published version of the article that included changes from the 1995 version to respond to comments that he had received on the earlier one. Plaintiff later submitted the article to the journal Population and Environment, which subjected it to a peer-review process and published it in March 1997. The article was shortened for publication but remained substantially the same as the 1996 self-published version.

Plaintiff spoke at a meeting in the summer of 1996. An audience member obtained a copy of plaintiff's 1996 self-published article at the meeting and later gave it to Leeman. Leeman is a member of 20-20 Commitment, a land use planning group. 20-20 Commitment decided to pay Ottaway to publish a series of editorial advertisements in order to publicize the group's views. Leeman wrote most of the editorial advertisements.

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Plaintiff's claim against Ottaway is founded on the contention that Ottaway acted with actual malice because it failed to verify whether plaintiff's article had been peer reviewed and published in a journal. That claim founders for the same reason as does the claim against Leeman. Because a jury could not find on this record that either defendant acted with actual malice in publishing the 20-20 Commitment advertisement, the trial court did not err in granting defendants' motion for summary judgment.

Affirmed for the defendant.

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C.L.