Reynolds v. Pegler

Plaintiff
Quentin Reynolds
Defendants
Westbrook Pegler, The Hearst Corporation, and Hearst Consolidated Publications
Plaintiff's Claim
That a certain column published by the defendants on 29 November 1949 libeledthe plaintiff.
Chief Lawyers for Plaintiff
Walter S. Beck, Paul Martinson, Louis Nizer
Chief Defense Lawyer
Charles Henry
Judge
Edward Weinfeld
Place
New York, New York
Date of Decision
22 July 1954
Decision
Against all defendants: Reynolds awarded $1 in compensatory damages and $175,000 in punitive damages.
Significance
The lopsided award of a huge amount of punitive damages in connection with anaward of only nominal compensatory damages was the largest in history at thetime. The decision sent a clear signal to the publishing industry that it would be held accountable for the libelous acts of its writers and reporters.
William Randolph Hearst, the publishing magnate, built an empire by publishing newspapers that had stories the public wanted to read. Hearst made sure that his papers had the best editors, writers and reporters money could buy. Oneof Hearst's favorite writers was Westbrook Pegler, who wrote articles for the King Features Syndicate of The Hearst Corporation, which in turn sold the articles to other Hearst papers. In particular, King Features sold Pegler articles to the New York Journal-American, a New York City newspaper ownedby Hearst Consolidated Publications.
Hearst died in 1945, nearly 90 years old, but Pegler remained with the Hearstorganization. Pegler's articles could be very vindictive and biting, and in1949 Pegler was accused of using his writing ability to hurt an old friend. On 20 November 1949 a writer for the New York Herald Tribune Book Review namedQuentin Reynolds wrote a review of Dale Kramer's book The Heywood Broun His Friends Recall. Heywood Broun, himself a writer, had once been a friend of Pegler but, during the 1930s, the two men had a falling-out. In 1939, Pegler wrote a scathing attack on Broun's works. According to Kramer, Broun wasso upset by Pegler's attack that Broun was unable to recover from a minor illness and died.
Despite the fact that the events described in Kramer's book were over ten years old, Pegler took offense at Reynolds' review. On 29 November 1949 Pegler'sarticle, "On Heywood Broun and Quentin Reynolds," was published in the Journal-American. Pegler's article had little to do with any critique of Reynolds'review, and was instead a wholesale assassination of Reynolds' character. Without any substantiation, Pegler said, that Reynolds and his girlfriend madea habit of appearing nude in public; that on the way to Heywood Broun's funeral Reynolds had proposed marriage to the widow, Connie Broun; that Reynolds had been a profiteer during World War II; that while working as a war correspondent in London, Reynolds had been a coward; and so forth. Pegler also calledReynolds a degenerate who associated with Communists, blacks and others Pegler regarded as undesirables.
Reynolds Sues for Libel
After the publication of Pegler's article, Reynolds sued Pegler, The Hearst Corporation and Hearst Consolidated Publications for libel. Reynolds' lawyerswere Walter S. Beck, Paul Martinson, and Louis Nizer. The defendants' chief lawyer was Charles Henry, and the judge was Edward Weinfeld. The trial began on May 10, 1954.
Aware that truth was a defense to the charge of libel, Nizer showed that Pegler's allegations in the article could not possibly be true. Nizer presented witnesses who testified that Reynolds could not have proposed to Connie Brounbecause she had been asleep and in the company of others all the way to the funeral, that Reynolds had not been a war profiteer, that Reynolds' war recordin fact showed considerable heroism rather than cowardice, and so on. Weinfeld was convinced, and he instructed the jury that they were to take it as a given that Pegler's article was libelous:

[T]hat column read in itsentirety, I charge you as a matter of law, is defamatory.

Henry tried his best to present plausible justifications for Pegler's accusations, but his excuses came across sounding rather thin. For example, Henry tried to explain away Pegler's charge that Reynolds had proposed to Connie Broun as possibly referring to the same high-minded spirit as Moses's ancient laws, which in biblical times placed:

. . . upon a brother the dutyof proposing to his dead brother's widow.

The jury was not convinced. On 22 July 1954 the jurors returned a guilty verdict against all three defendants. Given the nature of Pegler's article and Weinfeld's instructions, this verdict was not surprising. What was surprising,however, was the amount of damages the jury awarded to Reynolds, which were of two types. The first type was the compensatory damages, which represented compensation to Reynolds for the damage, emotional and otherwise, caused by Pegler's vicious public attack on his character. As is common in such cases, the dollar value of the damage done was hard to determine and so the jury gavea nominal award of just one dollar. The second type of damages was punitive,which represented the punishment that the jury saw fit to impose on the defendants for having published the article.
The amount of punitive damages rocked the publishing industry, for at the time it was the largest award of its kind in American history. The jury awardedReynolds $100,000 against Pegler, $50,000 against The Hearst Corporation, and$25,000 against Hearst Consolidated Publications, for a total of $175,000 inpunitive damages. Although the size of the award was unprecedented, it was financially a drop in the bucket to the massive Hearst organization. The disturbing part, however, was that publishers could now be held financially liablefor the libels and other unlawful acts of their writers. The defendants promptly appealed.
On 16 and 17 February 1955 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard the parties' arguments. The court issued its decision on 7 June of the same year. The court not only upheld the verdict against Pegler and the otherdefendants, but it reaffirmed the principle that publishers could be held accountable for the acts of their writers:

The mere fact that there was no proof of personal ill-will or animosity on the part of any of the corporate executives toward plaintiff does not preclude an award of punitive damages. Malice may be inferred from the very violence and vituperation apparent upon the face of the libel itself, especially where, as here, officers or employees of each corporate defendant had full opportunity to and were under a duty to exercise editorial supervision for purposes of revision, but permitted the publication of the column without investigation, delay or any alteration whatever of its contents. The jury maywell have found on this evidence a wanton or reckless indifference to plaintiff's rights.

Thus, the court was telling the Hearst companies in particular and the publishing industry in general that if writers like Pegler wrote vicious and personal articles, the publishers would be held liable if they did not exercise proper editorial control over potentially defamatory material. The defendants exercised their final avenue of appeal, namely a petition for a writ of certiorari, to the Supreme Court, which was denied on 10 October 10, 1955.
The case of Reynolds v. Pegler, with its stupendous award of punitivedamages in relation to the nominal compensatory damages, sent a danger signalthroughout the publishing industry. This new awareness of potential liability changed forever the relationship between publishers, writers, and reporters. From this date forward, publishers and editors would take greater care to make sure that their publications were accurate and nondefamatory.
Related Cases

• New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964).
  
• Westmoreland v. CBS, 770 F. 2d 1168 (1984).
  
• Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988).

Libel: Are Large Settlements Deterrents?
Financial awards in libel cases have become astronomical in recent years. Does the potential high cost of libel suits prevent publishers from printing controversial material?
The potential financial damage such a suit could cost a publisher or broadcaster must make many think twice about publishing certain material. A jury awarded former Texas district attorney, Victor Feazell, $58 million in a suit against a television station. Feazell announced after the decision that, "This verdict sends a message to the rest of the media to get your facts straight."Settling libel cases involving millions of dollars could literally put smallpublishers and broadcasters out of business. Companies like the MMR Group, who in 1997 sued Dow Jones & Co. for libel and won a settlement for $220.7million, may never see their settlement money after the multiple appeals thatbig companies can afford to file.
Conversely, since the 1964 decision of New York Times v. Sullivan, public officials and public figures have had a greater burden upon them to provethe falsity of information, or that the material was published with a "reckless disregard" for the truth. Large media organizations with deep financial pockets, may be less likely to hesitate than smaller ones in publishing questionable information.
Sources
Pressman, Steven. "An Unfettered Press. Libel Law in the United States." http://www.usia.gov/usa/infousa/media/unfetter/press08.htm