🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4sijne$9cv@news1.emplink.net>, Mark Dallara
<mdallara@kcii.com> writes
>From the 7/17/96 edition of the _St._Petersburg_Times_...
>
>
>Scientology suit against Time Warner dismissed
>
>(Reuters)
>NEW YORK - A federal judge Tuesday dismissed a libel suit brought by the
>Church of $cientology International against Time Warner Inc. and its Time
>Inc. Magazine Co.
>
...
>
>The issue that remained in the case involved the statement about a source
>of the church's funds.  Leisure said he found that the statement was not
>made with actual malice and was not libelous.

Judge Leisure did not find that the statement was not made with actual
malice.  He decided it was non-actionable under the Subsidiary Meaning
doctrine--that its meaning was encompassed by other statements in the
piece which had either not been challenged or had been judged to have
been made without actual malice.

Actual malice is defined by the court as "knowing that something is
untrue of with serious doubts as to its veracity."  It is a requirement
for a finding of libel against a public figure.

People often characterise this as "the truth is an absolute defence" but
actually it is much more realistic than that.  Rather than determine the
absolute truth of a statement, the court is only required to determine
whether the plaintiff has shown that the defendant knowingly suppressed
evidence that the statement was untrue.