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Rudnick v. McMillan, 25 Cal.App.4th 1183, 31 Cal.Rptr.2d 193, 22 Media L. Rep. 2008

Facts

Marcus Rudnick, a cattle rancher, purchased the MU ranch in 1951 and had been grazing cattle there since 1935. In 1991, the Bureau of Land Management announced plans to suspend cattle grazing, leading Rudnick to express concerns about land management to a trade publication editor, resulting in an article that criticized the Nature Conservancy and BLM. Following this, columnist Dick Nock published an article about Rudnick's ranch, prompting McMillan to write a letter to the editor that Rudnick claimed contained false statements about him and his ranch's condition, leading to the libel lawsuit.

Rudnick alleged that the following quotes from McMillan's letter are untrue about him: 1. “When Marcus Rudnick bought the MU Ranch in 1936 it was covered by a shrub grassland that fattened livestock and supported an abundance of wildlife.” 2. “When I visited the MU and adjoining BLM holdings in December 1990, cattle dung was all that remained to protect the soil and the only wildlife species were those that lived underground. The winds had been and continued to blow tons and tons of soil from this denuded range.” 3. “This windswept land furnished an ideal environment for the alien tumbleweed to germinate and grow.” 4. “Now Mr. Nock and Mr. Rudnick are blaming ‘nature groups' for the blanket of tumbleweed that covers the MU … they seem oblivious to the reality that past land use practices have resulted in this dismal state of degradation.

Issue

Did the trial court err in instructing the jury that Rudnick needed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that McMillan's letter contained a false assertion of fact, rather than requiring clear and convincing evidence of actual malice?

McMillan asserts that for the purposes of this action, Rudnick is a limited purpose public figure and that the trial court failed to instruct accordingly.

Rule

In libel cases involving public figures, the plaintiff must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant published a false statement with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for its truth.

In a libel case involving a public figure, a jury must find by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant published the false assertion of a fact with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for its truth.

Analysis

The court determined that Rudnick was a limited public figure because he had voluntarily injected himself into the public controversy regarding land management practices. As such, the court held that the jury should have been instructed to find actual malice, meaning they needed to find that McMillan's statements were made with knowledge of their falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth. However, the court also found that McMillan's statements were opinions rather than factual assertions, which are not actionable for libel.

Rudnick made himself into a limited purpose public figure. Assuming that McMillan's statements were defamatory and actionable, he may not be held to have libeled Rudnick unless a jury finds by clear and convincing evidence that he wrote his letter either with knowledge that it contained a false statement of fact or with reckless disregard for whether his assertions were true or false.

Conclusion

The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court's judgment in favor of Rudnick, concluding that McMillan's letter was not defamatory and therefore not subject to an action for libel.

Although reversal is required because the trial court failed to instruct the jury on actual malice, we do not remand for retrial. McMillan's letter to the editor is an opinion which is not actionable for libel.

Who won?

Irv McMillan prevailed in the case because the court found that his statements were opinions and not actionable as libel.

McMillan's letter to the editor is not defamatory and therefore not subject to an action for libel.

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