{ "id": 3531330, "name": "WILLIAM D. SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COPLEY PRESS, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees (The City of Springfield et al., Defendants)", "name_abbreviation": "Smith v. Copley Press, Inc.", "decision_date": "1986-01-31", "docket_number": "No. 4\u201485\u20140388", "first_page": "613", "last_page": "617", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "140 Ill. App. 3d 613" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "425 N.E.2d 1130", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 2, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1133" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "99 Ill. App. 3d 421", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3101303 ], "weight": 2, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "424" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/99/0421-01" ] }, { "cite": "239 N.E.2d 837", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "40 Ill. 2d 257", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 2856770 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/40/0257-01" ] }, { "cite": "383 U.S. 75", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6167317 ], "weight": 9, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "85" }, { "page": "605" }, { "page": "676" }, { "page": "86" }, { "page": "606" }, { "page": "676" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/383/0075-01" ] }, { "cite": "388 U.S. 130", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6167825 ], "weight": 3, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/388/0130-01" ] }, { "cite": "376 U.S. 254", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 379234 ], "weight": 6, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "279-80" }, { "page": "706" }, { "page": "726" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/376/0254-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 624, "char_count": 10417, "ocr_confidence": 0.764, "pagerank": { "raw": 4.03580807328026e-08, "percentile": 0.0993038590280746 }, "sha256": "5ff248e601b9998ab63c05ea8bc0b7cb29b0f3fdd81954ca4baebff4edd60904", "simhash": "1:c8c4b16e4c452e2f", "word_count": 1675 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:56:30.289204+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "WILLIAM D. SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COPLEY PRESS, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees (The City of Springfield et al., Defendants)." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "JUSTICE MORTHLAND\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nThe plaintiff appeals from entry of summary judgment for the defendants in a defamation action. We reverse.\nThe plaintiff, William D. Smith, worked as a jailer or \u201cturnkey\u201d at the Springfield police station. This facility was used to incarcerate both local offenders and Federal prisoners. When the incidents giving rise to this litigation occurred, the plaintiff had been working as a jailer for approximately five months. As a jailer, the plaintiff was a civilian employee of the Springfield police department. Although he had a high school degree and had taken some courses in law enforcement administration at a junior college, there were no educational or training prerequisites to the jailer position. The plaintiff had access to keys which unlocked the cell doors and others within the jail facility. He carried no weapon, although he had access to a nightstick. The manual which details the jailer\u2019s duties indicates that the plaintiff had no authority to allow a person other than a police officer into the jail without prior authorization by a superior. The plaintiff was required to conduct periodic body counts of the prisoners, inventory and store valuables found on prisoners, and ensure that prisoners had been properly searched by the police officer who booked them. The jailer was also required to know where alarms were located within the jail and was to see that proper booking procedures were followed.\nOn the night of January 22-23, 1978, while the plaintiff was on duty, two Federal prisoners attempted to escape. The prisoners sawed through bars on one door within the jail and appeared in a front room where the plaintiff and another jailer were on duty. The plaintiff and his fellow jailer grappled with the escaping prisoners and within a short time, police arrived and returned the prisoners to their cells.\nThe January 23, 1978, morning edition of the State Journal-Register, a newspaper owned and operated by defendant Copley Press, Inc., contained a front-page story detailing the escape attempt. The article reported that the plaintiff and his fellow jailer were treated for injuries and that the plaintiff and a third jailer, Karl E. Kaylor, had been arrested on charges of aiding the escape attempt. The article paraphrased the Springfield police chief as stating that he \u201cwould not be able to say how or why the jailers aided the prisoners until investigations were complete.\u201d The article then continued:\n\u201cAccording to a police source, Smith was homosexually involved with one or both of the convicts, leading to his alleged involvement in the escape.\nThe source also said Smith owned a black onyx ring, which allegedly was given to one of the prisoners in return for sexual favors. The ring was later found in one of the cells.\u201d\nSubsequently, officials apparently determined that the escaping prisoners had used materials smuggled into their cells by a girlfriend of one of the escapers during Mr. Kaylor\u2019s shift at the jail. A grand jury refused to indict the plaintiff for his alleged involvement in the escape attempt. Nevertheless, the plaintiff did not return to work with the police department after January 23, 1978.\nOn January 22, 1979, the plaintiff filed suit in Sangamon County circuit court alleging that the paragraphs from the article quoted above had libeled him. Included as defendants were the State Journal-Register\u2019s parent company, Copley Press, the newspaper\u2019s reporters and editors, the city of Springfield, and two Springfield policemen, Detective James Dickerson and Captain Frank Hoover. Only the newspaper defendants remain at this juncture.\nCounts I and III pertain to the newspaper defendants. Count I alleged that the newspaper defendants knew or should have known that the article\u2019s statements concerning the plaintiff\u2019s alleged homosexual activity were false and that these defendants did not believe in the truth of the assertedly libelous statements. Count III alleged that the newspaper defendants either failed to exercise reasonable care in determining the truth of their statements concerning the plaintiff or lacked reasonable grounds for their belief that these statements were true. Under count I, the plaintiff also alleged that the article was published with reckless disregard of the truth.\nThe unnamed police source referred to in the allegedly libelous statements was identified in depositions as Captain Frank Hoover, the highest ranking police official on duty during the escape. On February 26, 1985, the newspaper defendants filed a motion for summary judgment. In their motion the defendants argued that the plaintiff was a \u201cpublic official\u201d within the meaning of the New York Times rule. (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), 376 U.S. 254, 11 L. Ed. 2d 686, 84 S. Ct. 710.) They further claimed that since the source of the allegedly defamatory material in the article was a high ranking police official who believed his statements concerning the plaintiff to be true, and since the reporter relied on his source in good faith, no issue of fact concerning the existence of the \u201cactual malice\u201d required by New York Times existed.\nOn May 8, 1985, the circuit court granted the motion for summary judgment against the plaintiff.\nThe plaintiff appeals, contending that if he is deemed a \u201cpublic official,\u201d his count I and the record sufficiently present a factual issue as to whether the newspaper defendants acted with \u201cactual malice.\u201d The plaintiff also seeks to reverse the trial court\u2019s determination that count III, the claim under a negligence theory, was inadequate due to the plaintiff\u2019s \u201cpublic official\u201d status.\nIn 1964, the United States Supreme Court limited the scope of defamation laws to bring them in line with the goals of the free speech clause of the first amendment. The high court determined that:\n\u201cThe Constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with \u2018actual malice\u2019 \u2014 that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.\u201d New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), 376 U.S. 254, 279-80, 11 L. Ed. 2d 686, 706, 84 S. Ct. 710, 726.\nThe Supreme Court subsequently extended this \u201cactual malice\u201d standard to \u201cpublic figures\u201d as well as public officials. (Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts (1967), 388 U.S. 130, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1094, 87 S. Ct. 1975.) None of the parties in the instant case contend that the plaintiff is a \u201cpublic figure.\u201d Indeed, the defendants\u2019 motion for summary judgment was premised upon the plaintiff being a public official.\nThe United States Supreme Court further defined the term \u201cpublic official\u201d in Rosenblatt v. Baer (1966), 383 U.S. 75, 15 L. Ed. 2d 597, 86 S. Ct. 669. The Rosenblatt Court determined that \u201c \u2018the public official\u2019 designation applies at the very least to those among the hierarchy of government employees who have, or appear to the public to have, substantial responsibility for or control over the conduct of governmental affairs.\u201d (383 U.S. 75, 85, 15 L. Ed. 2d 597, 605, 86 S. Ct. 669, 676.) Nevertheless, the Supreme Court cautioned that the \u201cpublic official\u201d characterization, with the attendant application of the New York Times malice standards, should be reserved for those positions in government in which \u201cthe public has an independent interest in the qualifications and performance of the person who holds it, beyond the general public interest in the qualifications and performance of all government employees ***.\u201d Rosenblatt v. Baer (1966), 383 U.S. 75, 86, 15 L. Ed. 2d 597, 606, 86 S. Ct. 669, 676.\nThe defendants argue that the plaintiff, as a jailer, is indistinguishable from a police officer. Police officers, of whatever rank, are unquestionably \u201cpublic officials\u201d in Illinois. (Coursey v. Greater Niles Township Publishing Corp. (1968), 40 Ill. 2d 257, 239 N.E.2d 837.) The plaintiff counters that because of the lack of training or education required for the jailer position, the utter lack of authority over other employees or members of the public, and the total lack of discretion accorded him in performing his duties as jailer, he should not be considered a public official.\nIn our view, the plaintiff performed different duties and possessed significantly less authority than does a police officer, of whatever rank. His status as a \u201cpublic official\u201d is, therefore, not controlled by the Coursey case. The appellate court\u2019s statement concerning a public school principal in McCutcheon v. Moran (1981), 99 Ill. App. 3d 421, 425 N.E.2d 1130, is equally applicable to the plaintiff in this case. In McCutcheon, the appellate court noted that \u201c[ijmplicit in the reasoning of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is the concept of a freedom of the governed to question the governor, of those who are influenced by the operation of government to criticize those who control the conduct of government.\u201d (99 Ill. App. 3d 421, 424, 425 N.E.2d 1130, 1133.) The McCutcheon court termed the relationship a public school principal has to the conduct of government \u201ctoo remote\u201d to open such an individual to a qualifiedly privileged assault on their reputation. Likewise, the plaintiff here had no authority to control the workings of his government employer. Even conceding that abuse of the jailer position may affect the public interest, we cannot say that the plaintiff held a position of such apparent importance that the public had an independent interest in his qualifications and performance beyond the usual public interest in the qualifications and performance of any government employee.\nWe hold that the plaintiff was not a \u201cpublic official\u201d during the events which led to this lawsuit for purposes of the New York Times malice standards. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the circuit court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.\nReversed and remanded.\nWEBBER and SPITZ, JJ., concur. .", "type": "majority", "author": "JUSTICE MORTHLAND" } ], "attorneys": [ "Jeffrey B. Levens, of Sturm & Levens, of Springfield, for appellant.", "Barber, Hall, Segatto & Hoffee, of Springfield (Barry 0. Hines, of counsel), for appellees." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "WILLIAM D. SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COPLEY PRESS, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees (The City of Springfield et al., Defendants).\nFourth District\nNo. 4\u201485\u20140388\nOpinion filed January 31, 1986.\nJeffrey B. Levens, of Sturm & Levens, of Springfield, for appellant.\nBarber, Hall, Segatto & Hoffee, of Springfield (Barry 0. Hines, of counsel), for appellees." }, "file_name": "0613-01", "first_page_order": 635, "last_page_order": 639 }