public officials Tag Archives — The Virginia Defamation Law Blog

Appearances can be deceiving. But in terms of analyzing whether a particular government employee should be treated as a “public official” for purposes of asserting a defamation claim, appearances may make all the difference in whether a plaintiff will be required to show malice or merely negligence. Horne v. WTVR was a case based on a claim of implied defamation that I wrote about back in 2017. As noted in my earlier blog post, the case ended with a directed verdict in favor of WTVR, because the trial court deemed Ms. Horne a public official and found insufficient evidence of malice to justify allowing a jury to consider the claim. Ms. Horne appealed that ruling, and on June 18, 2018, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. In doing so, it elaborated on what it means to be a “public official” in Virginia.

If the plaintiff in a defamation case is a public official, he cannot “recover[] damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with ‘actual malice’―that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279–80 (1964)). This is significant, because private plaintiffs are only required to establish negligence to succeed on a defamation claim–a much lower threshold.

When local politicians sue media defendants over false and defamatory stories related to their official conduct, they need to show that the article in question was published with actual malice. That means that it’s not enough to show negligent reporting or that some of the facts in the article are untrue; a successful public official bringing a defamation claim against a newspaper must show that the paper either knew the facts were wrong or that they were most likely wrong, and proceeded to publish them anyway.

In Hanover County, Virginia, Supervisor Sean M. Davis is taking a crack at the publisher of Style Weekly and its reporter, Peter Galuszka, over an article written last December that questioned whether Mr. Davis was exerting improper influence on a local high school’s curriculum. After noting that several books and movies had been banned from Hanover High School, the article described “some students, former teachers and parents” as saying that Supervisor Davis had “personally intervened to have teachers suspended or face other disciplinary actions if they present ideas or images that Davis considers too liberal.” In truth, claims his lawsuit, Davis “had absolutely nothing to do with the suspension or firing of any teacher or the banning of any book.” His challenge is going to be in proving that the reporter republished the accusations against him with knowledge that they were untrue, or at least with a high degree of awareness that the accusations were probably untrue.

Articles Tagged with public officials

Whether to Treat Government Employee as “Public Official” May Depend More on Job Description Than Actual Job Performance

Public Official Suing Local Paper Will Need to Prove Malice