Fred Uranga v. Federated Publications, Inc., DBA The Idaho Statesman,

JUSTICES THOMPSON, JOHNSON, HANSON

OPINION BY THOMSPON AND JOHNSON with Hanson concurring in their judgement.

This case requires us to decide whether the Idaho Statesman is protected from liability under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

As noted in the facts of this case submitted in both received briefs, the Dir Statement had already been made public as part of a court document released forty years ago. Mr. Uranga’s reputation appears to not have been harmed by the public release of the Dir Statement, since he claims that it is the Idaho Statesman and not the state of Idaho that has caused the harm to his reputation. If the Statesman were to be held liable, it cannot be for the public release of the Dir Statement, but for the wide dissemination of information contained within an already public document.

This Court cannot view this case within a vacuum, but must take into account the ramifications of deciding that a newspaper can be held liable for disseminating information already made public without being presented with any evidence as to the potential fallacy of that information. In Cox Broadcasting Corp v. Cohn, the Supreme Court noted that the press is protected when it publishes true information found in court documents. As Mr. Fisher quoted from Cox in his brief, “Once true information is disclosed in public court documents open to public inspection, the press cannot be sanctioned for publishing it” (Brief for Plaintiff-Appellant, 3). To that end, we find that the Statesman’s publication of the Dir Statement is constitutionally protected by the First Amendment.

I.

Democratic pluralism, discussion and the free flow of information and ideas have formed the cornerstone of American governance and jurisprudence since the nation’s inception. The freedom of the press, the media, to disseminate and publish content of its choosing, free from direct or indirect government censorship, is one of the essential ways in which the ideal and commitment to democratic pluralism is maintained. The merits and importance of this free exchange within the “market place of ideas” cannot be underemphasized. The case of Uranga v. the Idaho Statesman raises the question of is what are the appropriate limits, if any, on the freedom of expression and the freedom of the press as laid out in the 1st and 14th Amendments. Petitioner contends that the Statesman, by printing the story entitled “The Boy Most Likely” in which the “Boys of Boise” scandal of 1956 was revisited, caused reckless infliction of emotional stress on the petitioner, Fred Uranga. Petitioner’s argument derives mainly from the reprinting of and then failure to retract what became known as the Dir Statement in which, Melvin Dir, while providing evidence to the police, claimed that Fred Uranga had had an affair with his cousin, Frank Jones.

Petitioner raises some valid questions about the necessity to print this article. It is hard to reconcile the Statesman’s argument that it printed the exposé in order to serve as a public warning about the harm that these kinds of witch hunts can create when in the process the Statesman performed virtually the same kind of social harm to Mr. Uranga. If the members of this Court were the editors and publishers of the Statesman we would not have reprinted the Dir Statement with his name in it. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that the Statesman did not have a Constitutionally protected right to do so.

Certainly this Court has recognized that there are certain, well-defined, and narrowly drawn limitations on the freedom of expression and that the freedom of expression and the freedom of press must always be balanced with other interests. In this case, the interest at hand would be the emotional well-being of Mr. Uranga. Both Petitioner and Respondent point the Court towards Cox Broadcasting Corporation v. Cohn as precedent and so that is where we look. Petitioner relies on the fact that the Georgia tort in question is valid only when the information being published serves the public interest. However, despite the fact that the broadcast of the victim’s names was not privileged as newsworthy, the Cox court ruled that, “at the very least, the First and Fourteenth Amendments will not allow exposing the press to liability for truthfully publishing information released to the public in official court records.” Thus, however specious one may think the Statesman’s claims to be serving the public interest may be, Cox indicates that the Statesman still had the right to publish the Dir Statement and that to punish it would be a violation of that right. The rational for protecting the press’ right to reprint information already available to the public in official government records extends far beyond the rights of the Idaho Statesman. If this Court were to punish media outlets for reprinting information that the government had itself printed, not only would the government be engaging in gross hypocrisy, but it would also be creating a chilling effect in which a system of self-censorship emerges. No longer would the press disseminate and play its crucial role in the exchange of ideas freely. It would be unduly burdened with an obligation to consider and evaluate every consequence; however minor, of its speech content, regardless of the fact that the content has already been made readily available for public consumption by the government.

Without question, American jurisprudence has demonstrated that media outlets do possess public responsibilities and should consider the public interest while performing their crucial role as a conduit of information and ideas. However, not allowing the press to reprint and trust a government document of this sort is far too heavy a yoke and holds private individuals, groups, and corporations to higher standards than the government itself is willing to ascent to. The media would be much more reticent to print information and thus would be forced into a position of self-censorship in which it neglects the public’s need to know and limits the exchange of information out of fear of litigation. The impact of this censorship and the diminution of the exchange and dissemination of ideas outweighs, on balance, the emotional stress caused to Mr. Uranga, especially when one considers that the information was already made public, granted on a much more limited basis.

Petitioner’s final contention regarding the standards and checks that publishers must meet in order to publish potentially damaging information is that for it to be protected speech, it must be true. To support his claim, Petitioner relies on the Cox Broadcasting decision which states, “Once true information is disclosed in public court documents open to public inspection, the press cannot be sanctioned for publishing it” (Cox Broadcasting, supra, at 496). Based on this, Petitioner claims that it is the obligation of the Statesman in this case, to verify the validity of the statement before publishing it and that only true information is protected and free from sanction. However, if this interpretation is upheld, it would mandate self-censorship on the press and prevent the dissemination of relevant information. Initially, the document the Statesman presented is true; it is an accurate depiction of the government document which is the historical representation that the series of articles was seeking to present to the public. The press must be able to present to the public government documents to establish specific information about the news on which they report. Additionally, placing a further burden of proving the “truth” of the content of a government message would, as outlined above, obviously require excessive and intrusive government imposed restraints on the presentation of pertinent information to the public.

However, Mr. Fisher fails to recognize that it is not up to the press to prove the truth of the Dir Statement. The Supreme Court made this clear in Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc. (1974). “Allowing the communications media to avoid liability for defamation only by proving the truth of all injurious statements,” the Court held, “does not accord adequate protection to First Amendment liberties” (Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc., 418 U.S. 323; 94 S. Ct. 2997; 41 L. Ed. 2d 789; 1974 U.S. LEXIS 88; 1 Media L. Rep. 1633 (1974)). The press is not required to prove the factual accuracy of all potentially damaging statements, because requiring such proof would thus chill the press from ever producing information that may be damaging without absolute certainty as to its accuracy.

Furthermore, the Petitioner in this case never brought forth any evidence showing that the Idaho Statesmen knew that there was a strong possibility that the Dir Statement falsely accused Mr. Uranga , or for that matter brought forth any evidence contradicting Mr. Dir’s claims. It is not enough to simply claim that the Statesman should have known that the Dir Statement was potentially false and therefore should have omitted it from the “Boys of Boise” article.

It is true, as Petitioner claims, that the State of Idaho has taken steps to protect its private citizens from damaging statements. The Supreme Court of Idaho, however, has held that it must at least be shown that these statements do contain inaccuracies, stating, “Generally, there must be some public disclosure of falsity or fiction concerning the plaintiff” (Baker v. Burlington Northern, Inc. 99 Idaho 688; 587 P.2d 829; 1978 Ida. LEXIS 321; 4 Media L. Rep. 2240). Even Mr. Fisher concedes that the factual accuracy of the Dir Statement is still undecided, stating instead that the Statement “may be false.” Finally, the Dir Statement was not disclosed to the public through the Idaho Statesman, but instead through the Idaho courts. Therefore, Idaho law does not protect Mr. Uranga from the Idaho Statesman’s publication of the Dir Statement.

In summation, media outlets are strained as it is in their good faith efforts to provide quality, accurate information. Exposing them to litigation for the printing of non-verifiable information in this case would open up a Pandora’s Box of litigation that would deter the media from pursuing and performing their job as the fourth institution/branch of the government. The media’s role and importance to the public interest is not isolated to its service as a conduit for the dissemination of information and ideas, but they also serve as a watchdog over the government, its elected members, and its functionaries. The scrutiny which the media provides over all areas of society must be preserved and, in the name of the public interest, we must not hamstring the press’ ability to perform these functions Thus, in this case, given the accuracy in reproducing the government document in its pages and the intrusiveness of a requirement that all news be proven true, the alleged harm caused to the Petitioner does not justify tampering with the compelling state and public interest that this Court has in protecting against an encroachment on the rights and freedom of the press as protected and outlined under the First Amendment.

For these reasons, the Court upholds the lower court’s decision: Affirmed.