Romaine v. Kallinger

Brief Fact Summary.

Romaine was featured in a chapter of a nonfiction book as a woman associated with criminals. She sued the publisher and author for libel, arguing that her portrayal in the book injured her professional reputation and ability to obtain future employment as a drug counsellor and social worker.

Synopsis of Rule of Law.

Absent exigent circumstances, the mere allegation that a plaintiff knows a criminal is not defamatory as a matter of law.

Facts.

Romaine was featured in a chapter of a nonfiction book as a woman associated with criminals. Specifically, the passage claimed that Romaine had ties with “a junkie” that she knew who was doing time in prison. She sued the publisher and author for libel, arguing that her portrayal in the book injured her professional reputation and ability to obtain future employment as a drug counsellor and social worker.

Issue.

Does the statement that Romaine knew of a junkie constitute a defamatory statement?

Held.

Affirmed.

No, the statement that Romaine knew of a junkie does not constitute a defamatory statement.

Discussion.

A defamatory statement is one that is false and injures a person’s reputation or exposes them to contempt or loss of good will and confidence. In a defamation case, the threshold question is whether the statement at issue is reasonably susceptible of a defamatory meaning. A court decides this question by evaluating the fair and natural meaning the statement would be given by a reasonable person of ordinary intelligence given the context in which it was made.

If a statement is susceptible of only one meaning and that meaning is defamatory, the statement is libelous as a matter of law (e.g., false attribution of criminality). If the statement is subject to more than one meaning (one defamatory, and one not), then the question of whether the statement is defamatory goes to the trier of fact.

A fair and natural meaning of the statement found in the nonfiction book would not find Romaine to be in illegal possession of drugs or otherwise engaged in any illegal drug-related activity.