{ "id": 2481100, "name": "BRENDA DOLATOWSKI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LIFE PRINTING AND PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees", "name_abbreviation": "Dolatowski v. Life Printing & Publishing Co.", "decision_date": "1990-04-20", "docket_number": "No. 1\u201488\u20143269", "first_page": "23", "last_page": "29", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "197 Ill. App. 3d 23" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "495 N.E.2d 1159", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 3, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1165" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "145 Ill. App. 3d 417", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3536906 ], "weight": 3, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "426" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/145/0417-01" ] }, { "cite": "349 N.E.2d 385", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 1986, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "387" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "64 Ill. 2d 1", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 5430455 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1986, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "6" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/64/0001-01" ] }, { "cite": "360 U.S. 564", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 9062 ], "weight": 6, "year": 1976, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/360/0564-01" ] }, { "cite": "515 N.E.2d 668", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "161 Ill. App. 3d 476", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3467335 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/161/0476-01" ] }, { "cite": "214 N.E.2d 746", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 2, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "747-48" }, { "page": "747-48" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "34 Ill. 2d 112", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 2879392 ], "weight": 2, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "114" }, { "page": "114" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/34/0112-01" ] }, { "cite": "420 U.S. 469", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 11643989 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1966, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "495-96" }, { "page": "349-50" }, { "page": "1046-47" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/420/0469-01" ] }, { "cite": "491 N.E.2d 1212", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 4, "year": 1975, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1214" }, { "page": "1216" }, { "page": "1216" }, { "page": "1216" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "145 Ill. App. 3d 1032", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3536992 ], "weight": 4, "year": 1975, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1035" }, { "page": "1036" }, { "page": "1037-38" }, { "page": "1037-38" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/145/1032-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 616, "char_count": 12946, "ocr_confidence": 0.742, "pagerank": { "raw": 1.7868027174055864e-07, "percentile": 0.7144030404861442 }, "sha256": "26530f34a0ed9fe42ffa49e0fd0ca4844188ee1447bf5c8d5eec9f44fb6b307e", "simhash": "1:1ad5ed8e954e5c8d", "word_count": 2042 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T17:08:36.740176+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "BRENDA DOLATOWSKI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LIFE PRINTING AND PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "JUSTICE RAKOWSKI\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nPlaintiff appeals from an order entered by the circuit court of Cook County granting defendants\u2019 motion to dismiss her amended complaint pursuant to section 2 \u2014 619 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 110, par. 2 \u2014 619). The issues presented on appeal are: (1) whether the fair reporting privilege protects Life Printing and Publishing Co., Inc. (Life Printing), and Vincent Iaccino from liability for a newspaper article which contained allegedly defamatory statements about plaintiff and (2) whether Emil Schullo is protected from liability by absolute privilege for allegedly defamatory statements he made concerning the plaintiff.\nAt around two o\u2019clock on the morning of February 14, 1987, plaintiff was arrested by officers from the Cicero police department for \u201chitchhiking\u201d pursuant to section 11 \u2014 1006 of the Illinois Vehicle Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1985, ch. 951/2, par. 11 \u2014 1006). Four days later an article appeared in the Cicero Berwyn Stickney Forest View Life, a newspaper published by defendant Life Printing. The article was written by defendant Vincent Iaccino, an employee of the newspaper. According to Iaccino\u2019s affidavit, he obtained information for the article from the police department \u201cGeneral Report Form,\u201d which contained information concerning plaintiff\u2019s arrest, and his interview with defendant Emil Schullo, the deputy police superintendent. The headline and text of the article stated:\n\u201c15 Ciceronians charged with soliciting rides\nFifteen Cicero women were arrested in separate incidents Saturday and Sunday in the 4800 block of 14th Street and charged with the unlawful solicitation of rides along a roadway.\nThose arrested were Brenda Kay Dolatowski of 2822 South 50th Court; ***.\nBond for each was set at $1,000, and they were given a March 9 Cicero court date.\nSaid Emil Schullo, Cicero police deputy superintendent, \u2018This is the largest number of Cicero women we have ever arrested for soliciting rides. To be honest, it is a bit of a shock. I am going to check my records for the past three years, and I would venture that in at least one of those years we did not have 15 Cicero women arrested for ride solicitation arrested [sic] for the entire year, let along [sic] two nights.\n\u2018Yes, we are continuing our crackdown on prostitutes, as we have always done, and we will continue to do so,\u2019 Schullo continued. \u2018Pretty soon these ladies are going to get tired of paying their bonds and going to court and might move their business elsewhere.\u2019 \u201d\nOn August 18, 1987, plaintiff filed a complaint against defendants Emil Schullo, the Town of Cicero and Life Printing, contending that they composed, wrote and printed or caused the composition, writing and printing of an article containing defamatory matter. Defendants joined in the filing of a motion to dismiss on December 1, 1987. An affidavit filed with the motion disclosed the identity of Vincent Iaccino as the author of the article. Plaintiff filed her amended complaint on March 4, 1988, adding Vincent Iaccino as a defendant, and defendants again jointly filed a motion to dismiss plaintiff\u2019s amended complaint pursuant to section 2 \u2014 619 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The trial court granted defendants\u2019 motion, finding that the Town of Cicero was protected from liability by the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 85, par. 1 \u2014 101 et seq.), that Emil Schullo was protected from liability by absolute privilege, and that both Life Printing and Vincent Iaccino were protected by the reporting privilege.\nPlaintiff appeals the dismissal of Life Printing, Vincent Iaccino and Emil Schullo but does not appeal the dismissal of her claim against the Town of Cicero.\nPlaintiff contends that the fair reporting privilege does not apply to the statements made concerning plaintiff in the newspaper story authorized by Vincent Iaccino and published by Life Printing. The newspaper article at issue includes information concerning plaintiff\u2019s arrest for hitchhiking which was taken from the arrest record as well as the quoted statements of Deputy Police Superintendent Schullo regarding the large number of arrests for hitchhiking and his continued \u201ccrackdown\u201d on prostitution. Plaintiff claims that Life Printing and Iaccino are not protected under the fair reporting privilege because the article creates a false connection between her arrest for hitchhiking and the crackdown on prostitution.\n\u201c[T]here is a special privilege that protects the news media from libel actions when it publishes information obtained from governmental and public proceedings that deal with matters of public concern.\u201d (O\u2019Donnell v. Field Enterprises, Inc. (1986), 145 Ill. App. 3d 1032, 1035, 491 N.E.2d 1212, 1214; Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn (1975), 420 U.S. 469, 495-96, 43 L. Ed. 2d 328, 349-50, 95 S. Ct. 1029, 1046-47.) This privilege was recognized by the Illinois Supreme Court in Lulay v. Peoria Journal-Star, Inc. (1966), 34 Ill. 2d 112, 114, 214 N.E.2d 746, 747-48. The Lulay court stated that \u201c[T]he right to speak and print about such actions of government is well established; denial of this right would be a serious infringement of both State and Federal constitutional guarantees of free speech and press.\u201d (Lulay, 34 Ill. 2d at 114, 214 N.E.2d at 747-48.) A news media account which is not a complete report of the proceedings remains under the aegis of the privilege if it is a fair abridgement of the proceedings. (O\u2019Donnell, 145 Ill. App. 3d at 1036, 491 N.E.2d at 1216.) This determination is made by comparing the official reports with the news media account. If the gist or sting of the defamation in the official report is the same as the gist or sting in the news account, then the news item is a fair abridgement of the proceedings and is covered by the reporting privilege. O\u2019Donnell, 145 Ill. App. 3d at 1037-38, 491 N.E.2d at 1216.\nIn the instant case, plaintiff claims that Iaccino and Life Printing are not protected by the fair reporting privilege because the newspaper article made a false connection between her arrest for hitchhiking and the crackdown on prostitution, and that there was nothing in the record to support this connection. Plaintiff cites Berkos v. National Broadcasting Co. (1987), 161 Ill. App. 3d 476, 515 N.E.2d 668, in support of her argument. In Berkos, the court held that the causal link between the plaintiff and the defamatory material was supplied by the defendant television station and not by any official records or proceedings. However, in this case any causal link between the plaintiff\u2019s arrest for hitchhiking and the police department\u2019s crackdown on prostitution was supplied by the deputy police superintendent and not by Iaccino and Life Printing. The newspaper article at issue consists of the names and addresses of 15 women who were arrested for hitchhiking on two consecutive nights and the quoted statements of Police Superintendent Schullo in two separate paragraphs. The first quoted paragraph contains Schullo\u2019s comments regarding the number of women arrested for ride solicitation, and the second quoted paragraph contains his comments regarding the crackdown on prostitution. Although plaintiff argues that the connection between her arrest and the crackdown on prostitution was supplied by Iaccino and Life Printing, the contents of the article illustrate that any such connection arose from plaintiff\u2019s arrest record and the quoted statements of Schullo. Furthermore, at the hearing on the motion to dismiss plaintiff\u2019s amended complaint, the affidavits of Schullo and Iaccino were presented. Schullo\u2019s affidavit stated that he believed the statements in the article attributed to him were true, and Iaccino\u2019s affidavit stated that the statements in the article attributed to Schullo were obtained from an interview with the deputy police superintendent and were a direct quotation of what he said. The record contains no counter-affidavit contradicting these facts. Therefore, the facts must be taken as true.\nPlaintiff also claims that the facts set forth in the affidavits contained conflicting inferences which required the trial court to submit to the jury the issue of whether the newspaper account was a fair and accurate summary of the information Iaccino obtained from the police. However, based on our discussion above, the issue of whether the newspaper account was a fair and accurate summary of information Iaccino obtained from the police was determined by the contents of the article as well as the affidavits of Iaccino and Schullo. Although plaintiff presented her own as well as several other affidavits, the statements in plaintiff\u2019s affidavits do not contain conflicting inferences, as plaintiff alleges, as to whether the newspaper article was an accurate report of Schullo\u2019s statements. We also conclude, contrary to plaintiff\u2019s argument, that any defamatory gist or sting in the article is attributable to Schullo\u2019s statements, which were accurately reported by Iaccino. (O\u2019Donnell, 145 Ill. App. 3d at 1037-38, 491 N.E.2d at 1216.) For these reasons, we conclude that the newspaper article authored by Iaccino and published by Life Printing is covered by the common law fair report privilege, and the trial court\u2019s dismissal of plaintiff\u2019s cause of action against these defendants was proper.\nPlaintiff next contends that Schullo is not protected from liability by absolute privilege for the defamatory statements he made concerning the plaintiff. At the time that Schullo made the statements quoted in the newspaper article, he was the deputy police superintendent of Cicero. Courts have held that an official of the executive branch of the Federal, State or local government cannot be held liable for statements made within the scope of his official duties. (Barr v. Matteo (1959), 360 U.S. 564, 3 L. Ed. 2d 1434, 79 S. Ct. 1335; Blair v. Walker (1976), 64 Ill. 2d 1, 349 N.E.2d 385; Morton v. Hartigan (1986), 145 Ill. App. 3d 417, 495 N.E.2d 1159.) In Blair, the court stat\u00e9d the policy concerns mandating such a privilege for government officials:\n\u201cThis restriction is justified by the countervailing policy that officials of government should be free to exercise their duties without fear of potential civil liability.\u201d Blair, 64 Ill. 2d at 6, 349 N.E.2d at 387, citing Matteo, 360 U.S. 564, 3 L. Ed. 2d 1434, 79 S. Ct. 1335.\nPlaintiff raises two arguments, both without merit, in support of her contention that Schullo is not protected from liability by absolute privilege for statements he made in an interview with the newspaper reporter. Plaintiff first claims that Schullo was not acting in an official capacity and the statements were not within the scope of his responsibilities. However, Schullo\u2019s affidavit stated that his \u201cduties as Deputy Policy [sic] Superintendent include overseeing all anti-vice operations of the Cicero Police Department *** and communicating, on behalf of the department, with the public and the press with respect to Department\u2019s efforts in this area.\u201d Although the affidavit of Dallas Keller contradicted Schullo\u2019s affidavit regarding Schullo\u2019s responsibilities, Keller\u2019s statements related to the policies and procedures of the Village of Maywood, rather than the Town of Cicero. Therefore, it was not relevant to Schullo\u2019s responsibilities as deputy police superintendent of Cicero. Plaintiff also contends that Schullo\u2019s statements were not covered by absolute privilege because they were oral statements made during an interview with Iaccino rather than during an official press release. However, plaintiff\u2019s argument is unsupported by authority and contradicted by the holding in Morton (145 Ill. App. 3d 417, 495 N.E.2d 1159), that letters as well as oral statements of the plaintiff\u2019s superiors were protected by absolute privilege. \u201c[T]he only consideration is whether the statements made were reasonably related to one\u2019s duties.\u201d Morton, 145 Ill. App. 3d at 426, 495 N.E.2d at 1165.\nFor these reasons, we conclude that Schullo was protected from liability by absolute privilege regarding the statements he made in the interview with Iaccino, and the dismissal of plaintiff\u2019s cause of action against Schullo was proper.\nAccordingly, the order of the circuit court dismissing plaintiff\u2019s amended complaint is affirmed.\nJudgment affirmed.\nLaPORTA, P.J., and EGAN, J., concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "JUSTICE RAKOWSKI" } ], "attorneys": [ "James A. Kamide & Associates, of River Grove, for appellant.", "Winston & Strawn, Daniel S. Hafter & Associates, Ltd., and W. Robert Blair, all of Chicago, and Dennis E. Both, of Cicero (Don H. Reuben, Timothy J. Rivelli, Jennifer G. Brown, Daniel S. Hefter, John R. Wylie, and Darcy L. Dulbis, of counsel), for appellees." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "BRENDA DOLATOWSKI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LIFE PRINTING AND PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees.\nFirst District (6th Division)\nNo. 1\u201488\u20143269\nOpinion filed April 20, 1990.\nJames A. Kamide & Associates, of River Grove, for appellant.\nWinston & Strawn, Daniel S. Hafter & Associates, Ltd., and W. Robert Blair, all of Chicago, and Dennis E. Both, of Cicero (Don H. Reuben, Timothy J. Rivelli, Jennifer G. Brown, Daniel S. Hefter, John R. Wylie, and Darcy L. Dulbis, of counsel), for appellees." }, "file_name": "0023-01", "first_page_order": 45, "last_page_order": 51 }