Target Media Partners et al v. Specialty Marketing Corporation
Filing
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MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Chief Judge Karon O Bowdre on 12/19/2019. (JLC)
FILED
2019 Dec-19 AM 10:24
U.S. DISTRICT COURT
N.D. OF ALABAMA
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA
SOUTHERN DIVISION
TARGET MEDIA PARTNERS and
ED LEADER,
Plaintiffs,
v.
SPECIALTY MARKETING
CORPORATION,
Defendant.
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Case No. 1:14-CV-00865-KOB
MEMORANDUM OPINION
This matter comes before the court on Defendant Specialty Marketing Corporation’s
motion for summary judgment regarding Plaintiff Ed Leader’s defamation claim. (Doc. 61.)
Because the allegedly defamatory statement is true, the court will GRANT Specialty Marketing’s
motion for summary judgment.
I. Facts and Procedural History
Plaintiff Target Media Partners owns several companies that publish and distribute free
magazines and newspapers for the trucking industry. During the early- to mid-2000s, Mr. Leader
worked for Target Media as head of the trucking division and was responsible for soliciting
advertisements for placement in the company’s various publications. Organizations that hire
truck drivers purchase the lion’s share of advertisements in Target Media’s publications.
Defendant Specialty Marketing Corporation publishes throughout the Southeastern United States
a free magazine of its own called Truck Market News.
In 2002, Target Media contractually agreed to distribute and display Specialty
Marketing’s Truck Market News each month at truck stops, rest stops, and similar locations
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frequented by truck drivers. In 2007, after discovering that Target Media was apparently
discarding Truck Market News copies instead of distributing and displaying them, Specialty
Marketing sued Target Media in Alabama state court, alleging breach of contract and fraud. In
2010, the trial court found Target Media liable for $2.36 million in damages. A lengthy appeals
process—including an opinion by the State Supreme Court and a denial of certiorari by the
United States Supreme Court—upheld Specialty Marketing’s damages. Target Media Partners
Operating Co., L.L.C. v. Specialty Marketing Corp., 177 So. 3d 843 (Ala. 2013); cert. denied,
Target Media Partners Operating Co. LLC v. Specialty Mktg. Corp., 135 S. Ct. 1702 (2015).
More than five years after the Alabama Supreme Court upheld Specialty Marketing’s award, Mr.
Leader still owes Specialty Marketing $671,200, plus interest, in unsatisfied damages. (Doc. 611 at 3; Doc. 63 at 2.)
In March of 2014, during the appeals process, Specialty Marketing mailed packages to at
least two of Target Media’s advertising clients. Included in each package was a cover letter. The
last paragraph of each letter, composed by Specialty Marketing’s president, stated:
It is my belief that you and everyone else that has any business or personal dealings
with Target Media Partners, their owners and officers, need to know of this
documented, trail [sic] proven fraud by them. All of which has been upheld by the
Alabama Supreme Court. Further, it is my belief that many others have been and
continue to be, victims of this fraud.
Based on this statement, Target Media and Mr. Leader filed a defamation suit against
Specialty Marketing on May 8, 2014. (Doc. 1.) In November of 2015, the Magistrate Judge
assigned to the case recommended dismissing the suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction
based on the Rooker-Feldman doctrine because Target Media’s claims were “inextricably
intertwined” with the underlying fraud and breach-of-contract case in state court. (Doc. 35.) This
court adopted the report and recommendation and dismissed the case because the Rooker-
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Feldman doctrine precluded the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction over Target Media’s claims.
Target Media Partners v. Specialty Mktg. Corp., No. 1:14-cv-00865-KOB, 2015 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 167397, at *4 (N.D. Ala. Dec. 15, 2015).
On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit considered the issue of “whether the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine can bar a federal suit regarding events occurring long after the entry of a state court
decision.” Target Media Partners v. Specialty Mktg. Corp., 881 F.3d 1279, 1281 (11th Cir.
2018). The Eleventh Circuit explained that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is a jurisdictionnarrowing canon that applies “where a party in effect seeks to take an appeal of an unfavorable
state-court decision” and “bars only that class of cases in which federal litigants seek reversal of
state court decisions.” Id. at 1285 (citation omitted).
In this case, the Eleventh Circuit held that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine was inapplicable
for two reasons. First, Specialty Marketing’s fraud and breach of contract claims presented
distinct legal issues from Target Media’s defamation claim. Id. at 1287. And second, the
temporal sequence categorically precluded the doctrine because the Alabama jury returned a
verdict against Target Media in 2010, and Specialty Marketing did not send the allegedly
defamatory letter until 2014. Id. The court concluded that an “allegedly tortious act occurring
long after the state court rendered its judgment cannot be barred by Rooker-Feldman because
there was no opportunity to complain about the allegedly injurious act in the state court
proceedings.” Id. The Eleventh Circuit declined to consider the merits of Target Media’s
defamation claim and remanded the case to this court. Id. at 1289.
Once the case returned to this court, Plaintiff Target Media moved to dismiss itself from
the case. (Doc. 58.) On February 26, 2019, the court granted the motion and dismissed Target
Media’s claim against Specialty Marketing with prejudice, leaving only Mr. Leader’s defamation
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claim against Specialty Marketing. (Doc. 60.) Specialty Marketing filed the instant motion on
March 3, 2019 (Doc. 61), and both parties provided briefs to the court regarding Specialty
Media’s motion for summary judgment. (Docs. 63, 64.)
II. Standard of Review
A district court reviewing a motion for summary judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 must
consider whether any genuine issues of material fact exist, and, if not, whether the moving party
is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The moving party “always bears the initial
responsibility of informing the district court of the basis for its motion, and identifying those
portions of ‘the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file,
together with the affidavits, if any,’ which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue
of material fact.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P.
56).
The court must refrain from weighing the evidence and making credibility
determinations, because these decisions fall within the province of the jury. Anderson v. Liberty
Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986). All evidence and inferences drawn from the underlying
facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. See Graham v. State
Farm Mut. Ins., 193 F.3d 1274, 1282 (11th Cir. 1999).
III. Analysis
Despite the lengthy and convoluted procedural history of this case, the single issue
currently before the court is extraordinarily simple: whether the phrase “continue to be victims of
this fraud” constitutes a false and defamatory statement under Alabama law.
A successful claim for defamation in Alabama requires four elements: “1) a false and
defamatory statement concerning the plaintiff; 2) an unprivileged communication of that
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statement to a third party; 3) fault amounting at least to negligence on the part of the defendant;
and 4) either actionability of the statement irrespective of special harm or the existence of special
harm caused by the publication of the statement.” Dolgencorp, LLC v. Spence, 224 So. 3d 173,
186 (Ala. 2016).
The parties in this case contest only the first element—that of falsity and defamatory
meaning. Whether a statement is reasonably capable of a defamatory meaning is a question of
law for the court to decide. Camp v. Yeager, 601 So. 2d 924, 926 (Ala. 1992). “If the
communication is not reasonably capable of a defamatory meaning, there is no issue of fact, and
summary judgment is proper.” Harris v. Sch. Annual Pub. Co., 466 So. 2d 963, 964–65 (Ala.
1985). When analyzing whether a statement is defamatory, the court considers the “meaning
which would be ascribed to the language by a reader or listener of ordinary or average
intelligence, or by a common mind.” Loveless v. Graddick, 325 So. 2d 137, 142 (Ala. 1975)
(quotations omitted). If the ordinary, common mind would interpret the contested statement in a
way that “harm[s] the reputation of [the plaintiff] as to lower him in the estimation of the
community or to deter third persons from associating or dealing with him,” then the statement
conveys a defamatory meaning and is actionable. Harris, 466 So. 2d at 964.
But even if a statement is facially defamatory, “[i]t is well established in Alabama that in
an action alleging defamation, truth is a complete and absolute defense.” Battles v. Ford Motor
Credit Co., 597 So. 2d 688, 692 (Ala. 1992). See also Sanders v. Smitherman, 776 So. 2d 68, 72
(Ala. 2000) (“[T]ruth is a complete bar to a defamation action.”).
In this case, Mr. Leader focuses on the phrase “it is my belief that many others have been
and continue to be, victims of this fraud.” He asserts that this statement “accuses Target Media
Partners and its ‘owners and officers’ of continuing to defraud its customers.” (Doc. 63 at 5.) But
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this statement, on its face, does not impute any ongoing behavior to Target Media. It merely
articulates, in the passive voice, that certain entities were and are victims of Target Media’s
fraud. These victims necessarily include not only Specialty Marketing, but every entity that
purchased advertisements in Specialty Marketing’s magazines that Target Media threw away.
See Target Media Partners Operating Co., LLC v. Specialty Mktg. Corp., 177 So. 3d 843, 848
(Ala. 2013) (describing the types of companies that purchase advertising space in Specialty
Marketing’s magazines.) More than seven years of litigation and failed appeals, coupled with
Target Media’s failure to pay damages awarded to Specialty Marketing, proved multiple entities’
ongoing “victimhood” within any conceivably reasonable understanding of the term.
Because the allegedly libelous statement is true, and because truth is a complete defense
to defamation, the court finds that Specialty Marketing’s two cover letters are not defamatory.
IV. Conclusion
For the reasons explained above, the court finds that Specialty Marketing did not defame
Mr. Leader. Because no genuine issues of material fact remain in this case, the court will
GRANT Specialty Marketing’s motion for summary judgment (Doc. 61.) and enter a separate
order consistent with this memorandum opinion.
DONE and ORDERED this 19th day of December, 2019.
____________________________________
KARON OWEN BOWDRE
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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