The New Jersey Supreme Court analyzed the fair-report privilege and held that initial pleadings were not an exception, and fall within the prospective sweep of the privilege. Salzano v. North Jersey Media Group, Inc., A-78/79 September Term 2008 (N.J. 5/11/2010) (N.J., 2010). In that case, the Plaintiff alleged that the statements were defamatory per se in that the use of the words “stealing,” “stolen funds,” and “taken” imputed criminal conduct to him; that the trustee’s assertions were baseless and unsupported; that defendants republished them “intentionally, maliciously, and with reckless and/or negligent disregard for the truth”; and that defendants “knew or should have known of their falsity.” At issue before the Supreme Court was the fair-report privilege, which protects the publication of defamatory matters that appear in a report of an official action or proceeding, or of a meeting open to the public that deals with a matter of public concern. The fair-report privilege reflects the judgment that the need, in a self-governing society, for free-flowing information about matters of public interest outweighs concerns over the uncompensated injury to a person’s reputation. Part and parcel of the public information theory is that no risk should be imposed on those who bring important public information forward. Medico v. Time, Inc., 643 F.2d 134, 142 (3d Cir.), cert. denied. 454 U.S. 836 (1981).
Furthermore, it is not necessary that the account be exact in every immaterial detail…It is enough that it conveys to the persons who read it a substantially correct account of the contents of the official documents. Salzano at 30, 31. The Salzano Court specifically analyzed the Defendants’ use of the words “stolen” and “stealing” (both words which were not used in the complaint):
- “In common parlance, the terms “misappropriate” and “steal” are equivalent. Indeed, misappropriate is actually defined as : 1a. To appropriate wrongly…b. To appropriate dishonestly for one’s own use…Given those definitions, the allegations in the Complaint that plaintiff “unlawfully misappropriated” funds belonging to Defendants fit comfortably within the definition of “steal”.” Id at 33.
“Put another way, to an ordinary citizen, the “sting” of the reports was essentially the same as that of the complaint insofar as the trustee alleged that plaintiff unlawfully diverted, converted and misappropriated funds for his own personal benefit.” Id at 34.
The Salzano Court cited to a decision wherein summary judgment was affirmed for defendant in a defamation case where an article reported charges of aggravated battery have been filed to describe civil complaint for assault. Cf. Sivulich v. Howard Publ’ns, Inc. 466 N.E.2d 1218, 1220 (Ill. App. Ct. 1984).
