| Chapter 1: | Defamation Laws on a Collision Course: The Evolution and Convergence of American and English Law |
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a substantial amount of independent public interest at the time of the publication. Public figures may achieve this status either by position (e.g., entertainers or athletes) or by purposeful activity which thrusts their personality “into the vortex of an important public controversy” (e.g., political activists).35 The Supreme Court noted that in both situations, public figures have “sufficient access to the means of counterargument to be able to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies of the defamatory statements”.36 In St. Amant v. Thompson,37 the Supreme Court had an opportunity to refine the actual malice standard further. The St. Amant case is significant because it attempts to define the more enigmatic, second part of the actual malice test—statements made with reckless disregard of the truth.38 Phil St. Amant was a candidate for public office in Louisiana. In a televised broadcast, he read questions he had asked a union official, Albin, along with the official’s answers. One or more of Albin’s answers imputed criminal activity, consisting of pay-offs to a local deputy sheriff, Herman Thompson. Thompson sued St. Amant for defamation and won a modest judgment which was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Louisiana. The Louisiana courts, while acknowledging that Thompson was a public official, found that St. Amant had indeed recklessly—though not knowingly—broadcasted false information about Thompson.39
The St. Amant case furthers the rule in the New York Times case by reinforcing that it is the subjective state of mind of the publisher that determines whether actual malice did exist. In this regard, the Louisiana trial court properly disregarded St. Amant’s evidence from an independent witness that pay-off money had been passed. From an actual malice standpoint, the evidence was correctly disregarded because the first time that St. Amant attempted this verification was after the lawsuit had been filed, and it therefore could not have been part of his state of mind at the time of the broadcast.40 Furthermore, St. Amant had no personal knowledge of the alleged criminal conduct and relied entirely on Albin’s affidavit and Albin was not available for testimony at trial. St. Amant testified that he had other affidavits, but he failed to produce any of them. Based on this evidence, the state court concluded that St. Amant demonstrated