Norman Gaudette v. Mainely Media, LLC

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions
Decision: 2017 ME 87 Docket: Yor-15-550
Argued: June 10, 2016
Decided: May 9, 2017
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, and HUMPHREY, JJ.
NORMAN GAUDETTE et al.
v.
MAINELY MEDIA, LLC, et al.
ALEXANDER, J.
[¶1] Mainely Media, LLC, Molly Lovell-Keely, and Benjamin Meiklejohn
(collectively, Mainely Media) appeal from an order of the Superior Court
(York County, O’Neil, J.) denying their special motion to dismiss the complaint
of Norman Gaudette and Joanne Gaudette pursuant to Maine’s anti-SLAPP
(Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) statute, 14 M.R.S. § 556
(2016). Because the anti-SLAPP statute does not apply to Mainely Media’s
publication of the newspaper articles at issue in this case, we affirm the trial
court’s order.
I. CASE HISTORY
[¶2] The record supports the following facts. See Nader v.
Me. Democratic Party (Nader II), 2013 ME 51, ¶ 2, 66 A.3d 571.
2
[¶3] In 1990, Norman Gaudette was a detective with the Biddeford
Police Department. Allegations surfaced that Gaudette had sexually abused
several teenage boys. Along with an internal investigation by the Biddeford
Police Department, the allegations were referred to and investigated by the
Maine Attorney General’s Office. In 1991, a York County grand jury, after a
presentation by the Attorney General’s Office, voted not to indict Gaudette. He
continued to work for the Biddeford Police Department until he retired in
2001.
[¶4] In February 2015, an individual alleging that he had been the
victim of sexual abuse committed by a different Biddeford police officer began
posting about the alleged abuse on social media. Meiklejohn and Lovell-Keely,
a reporter and an editor, respectively, for the Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier, a
newspaper owned by Mainely Media, began reporting on the new allegations.
Their work led them to interview and publish reports regarding statements
made by several of Gaudette’s alleged victims and Terry Davis, the Biddeford
police officer who originally brought the 1990 allegations against Gaudette to
the Police Department’s attention.
[¶5] As a result of the 2015 allegations involving Gaudette and the
other Biddeford police officer, members of the public began holding meetings
3
with members of state and local government to discuss the alleged abuse and
possible reforms. The Biddeford City Council considered placing the police
chief and deputy chief on administrative leave, and some government officials
began to speak publicly about the allegations and to propose legislation in
response.
[¶6] One of Meiklejohn and Lovell-Kelly’s articles included Davis’s
account of the 1991 grand jury proceeding. Davis’s statements, as
represented in the article, contain the following allegations. A fifteen-year-old
boy spoke with Davis at the Biddeford police station and alleged that Gaudette
had sexually abused him. Investigations by the Biddeford police and Maine
Attorney General’s Office identified multiple other alleged victims who
claimed that Gaudette had abused them. None of the alleged victims were
called to testify before the grand jury, and during Davis’s testimony before the
grand jury, an Assistant Attorney General surprised Davis by asking him
probing questions about Davis’s father’s suicide after Davis’s father was
accused of sexually abusing a child, suggesting to the grand jury that Davis
was incapable of impartially investigating a child abuse case. Gaudette then
testified before the grand jury. The article reported that after the grand jury
voted not to indict Gaudette, the Assistant Attorney General went to the
4
Biddeford police station and asked Davis and another officer to meet him at a
restaurant in Biddeford, which they did. At the restaurant, the article
reported, the Assistant Attorney General “continuously apologized” and told
Davis that he “purposely threw the case under the bus” on orders from his
superiors.
[¶7] The Gaudettes filed a complaint against Mainely Media, LLC,
Meiklejohn, and Lovell-Keely on June 24, 2015, alleging that they intentionally
or recklessly disregarded the truth or falsity of the accounts included in their
articles. The complaint included counts of false light portrayal, defamation,
intrusion into seclusion, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent
infliction of emotional distress, and loss of consortium, and sought damages
for loss of employment, stress, depression, and punitive damages.
[¶8] On August 24, 2015, Mainely Media filed a special motion to
dismiss pursuant to 14 M.R.S. § 556, which the court denied on
October 26, 2015. The court observed that the law is unsettled as to whether
Mainely Media’s publication of newspaper articles constitutes “petitioning
activity” within the meaning of the anti-SLAPP statute, but determined that
this question was not dispositive because Gaudette had met his burden to
5
show that Mainely Media’s purported petitioning activity was devoid of
reasonable factual support. See 14 M.R.S. § 556. This appeal followed.1
II. LEGAL ANALYSIS
[¶9] Mainely Media argues that its anti-SLAPP motion should have been
granted because the articles constitute a “petitioning activity” for anti-SLAPP
purposes and because Gaudette failed to show that Mainely Media’s
petitioning activity was devoid of reasonable factual support.
[¶10] Although the order denying Mainely Media’s motion is not a final
judgment, interlocutory appeals from denials of anti-SLAPP motions are
permitted. See Town of Madawaska v. Cayer, 2014 ME 121, ¶ 8, 103 A.3d 547.
We review the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion de novo. Id.
[¶11] Ruling on an anti-SLAPP motion requires a multi-step analysis.
First, the moving party “must demonstrate that the anti-SLAPP statute applies
by showing that the claims against it are based on the exercise of that party’s
constitutional right to petition.” Nader II, 2013 ME 51, ¶ 13, 66 A.3d 571;
accord Gaudette v. Davis, 2017 ME 86, ¶¶ 8, 16, --- A.3d ---. If the moving party
succeeds at the first step, the burden shifts to the nonmoving party to produce
“prima facie evidence that at least one of the moving party’s petitioning
1 See also Gaudette v. Davis, 2017 ME 86, --- A.3d ---, also decided today.
6
activities was devoid of any reasonable factual support or any arguable basis
in law and caused actual injury to the non-moving party.” Nader II,
2013 ME 51, ¶ 14, 66 A.3d 571 (alterations omitted); accord Gaudette v. Davis,
2017 ME 86, ¶¶ 9, 17, --- A.3d ---. If the nonmoving party meets this prima
facie burden, the parties may seek an additional procedure for the evaluation
of whether the plaintiff’s claims may proceed. Gaudette v. Davis, 2017 ME 86,
¶ 18, --- A.3d ---.
[¶12] The anti-SLAPP statute permits a defendant to file a special
motion to dismiss a lawsuit “brought with the intention of chilling or deterring
the free exercise of the defendant’s First Amendment right to petition the
government by threatening would-be activists with litigation costs.”
Schelling v. Lindell, 2008 ME 59, ¶ 6, 942 A.2d 1226. The anti-SLAPP statute
applies only if the activity the plaintiff complains of constitutes “petitioning
activity,” which the statute defines as
any written or oral statement made before or submitted to a
legislative, executive or judicial body, or any other governmental
proceeding; any written or oral statement made in connection
with an issue under consideration or review by a legislative,
executive or judicial body, or any other governmental proceeding;
any statement reasonably likely to encourage consideration or
review of an issue by a legislative, executive or judicial body, or
any other governmental proceeding; any statement reasonably
likely to enlist public participation in an effort to effect such
7
consideration; or any other statement falling within constitutional
protection of the right to petition government.
14 M.R.S. § 556. We have interpreted this language as broadly inclusive.
Schelling, 2008 ME 59, ¶ 12, 942 A.2d 1226.
[¶13] We have not addressed whether a newspaper may utilize the
anti-SLAPP statute when it is facing a defamation claim based on its reporting.
We have, however, interpreted “petitioning activity” to include a letter to the
editor published in a newspaper where the letter was “designed to expand the
public consideration of a controversial issue recently considered by the
Legislature” and where the letter writer was the party seeking dismissal
pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute. Id. ¶ 13. Additionally, we have held that
the statute applies to a defendant’s letters addressed to the City Council and
Mayor and statements made to a newspaper where these communications
were published in a newspaper. Maietta Constr., Inc. v. Wainwright,
2004 ME 53, ¶¶ 3, 7, 847 A.2d 1169.
[¶14] The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has held that the
Massachusetts anti-SLAPP statute2 does not apply to a reporter’s statements
made in articles about a local development project because the articles did not
2
Mass. Ann. Laws ch. 231, § 59H (LexisNexis 2016) is substantively identical to Maine’s
anti-SLAPP statute.
8
constitute “statements seeking to redress a grievance or to petition for relief
of her own.” Fustolo v. Hollander, 920 N.E.2d 837, 842 (Mass. 2010). The
Massachusetts court noted that, in an affidavit, the reporter stated that “while
she had personal views on the issues she covered, ‘they were not reflected in
the articles [she] wrote.’” Id.
[¶15] The Massachusetts court’s interpretation of its anti-SLAPP
statute provides useful guidance for interpreting Maine’s statute, which
applies when the moving party asserts that claims “against the moving party
are based on the moving party’s exercise of the moving party’s right of
petition.” 14 M.R.S. § 556 (emphasis added). Unless a newspaper is
petitioning on its own behalf, the newspaper is not exercising its own right of
petition. Here, the newspaper was documenting current events, which
included documenting others’ exercise of their right to petition. Mainely
Media itself may have had views on the alleged abuse and how government
should respond to the alleged abuse, but those views were not communicated
in the articles. Cf. Fustolo, 920 N.E.2d at 842.
[¶16] Mainely Media asserts that we have previously held that an
attorney’s statements to the media on behalf of his client constituted
petitioning activity within the meaning of the anti-SLAPP statute, despite the
9
fact that the attorney was not petitioning on his own behalf. See
Maietta Constr., Inc., 2004 ME 53, ¶¶ 3, 7, 847 A.2d 1169. An attorney-client
relationship, which includes agency duties, is distinguishable from whatever
relationship, if any, a newspaper has with the subjects of its articles.
[¶17] The language of Maine’s anti-SLAPP statute restricts its
application to suits based on “exercise of the moving party’s right of petition,”
14 M.R.S. § 556, and the purpose of the right of petition is to protect
expression that seeks redress from government, see Borough of Duryea v.
Guarnieri, 564 U.S. 379, 388 (2011) (“The right to petition allows citizens to
express their ideas, hopes, and concerns to their government and their elected
representatives . . . .”); see also Morse Bros. v. Webster, 2001 ME 70, ¶ 10,
772 A.2d 842 (“‘The typical mischief that the [anti-SLAPP] legislation intended
to remedy was lawsuits directed at individual citizens of modest means for
speaking publicly against development projects.’” (quoting Duracraft Corp. v.
Holmes Prods. Corp., 691 N.E.2d 935, 940 (Mass. 1998))). Maine’s anti-SLAPP
statute is not applicable to newspaper articles unless those articles constitute
the newspaper petitioning on its own behalf or the party seeking to invoke the
anti-SLAPP statute is a party that used the newspaper to broadcast the party’s
own petitioning activities.
10
[¶18] Pursuant to this interpretation, Mainely Media’s articles at issue
in this appeal do not constitute petitioning activity within the meaning of the
anti-SLAPP statute.3 Because we hold that the anti-SLAPP statute does not
apply to Mainely Media’s publication of the articles at issue in this case, we do
not reach any additional steps of the anti-SLAPP analysis. See Gaudette v.
Davis, 2017 ME 86, ¶ 16, --- A.3d ---.
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
James B. Haddow, Esq., (orally), Petruccelli, Martin & Haddow, LLP, Portland
for appellants Mainely Media, LLC, Molly Lovell-Keely, and Benjamin
Meiklejohn
Gene R. Libby, Esq., and Tara A. Rich, Esq., (orally), Libby O’Brien Kingsley &
Champion LLC, Kennebunk, for appellee Norman and Joanne Gaudette
York County Superior Court docket number CV-2015-123
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY
3
Because the news reports at issue in this appeal do not constitute petitioning activity, we need
not speculate on when news reporting or editorializing might constitute petitioning activity.