Case Summary

3984 A candidate or former candidate for political office is a public figure, and in an action for defamation, must plead "actual malice" (i.e., knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for truth), and general allegations of malice do not satisfy that requirement; calling plaintiffs "top rated dumb asses" and linking their names to a website titled satan.com do not assert facts and so cannot support an action for defamation; falsity of the statement that plaintiff is a deadbeat dad who owes his wife and children thousands is not sufficiently alleged by the plaintiff's declaration that he does not owe his wife and children thousands; falsity of the statement that plaintiff is bankrupt is not sufficiently alleged by the plaintiff's declaration that he is not bankrupt coupled with his admission that he filed a petition in bankruptcy; falsity of a statement that plaintiff is a drunk is not sufficiently alleged by the plaintiff's declaration that he is not an alcoholic; for those reasons, plaintiffs' declarations do not sufficient allege the falsity of any statement made by linking plaintiffs' names to websites titled olddrunk.com, and bankruptasshole.com; the statement that plaintiff is "chewin' tobaccy" is probably too whimsical for the reasonable person to take seriously, does not carry sufficient opprobrium to be defamatory even if it is false, and is not sufficiently alleged to be false by the plaintiff's declaration that he does not chew tobacco.

VOGEL v FELICE (Dumb Asses) 127 CA4 1006 [See: CCP 425.16; NY Times v Sullivan 376 US 254; Beilenson v Superior Court 44 CA4 944, T/AT 5/96; Beruan v French 56 CA3 825; Franklin v Dynamic 116 CA4 375, T/AT 4/04; Stolz v KSFM 30 CA4 195, T/AT 12/94]