Chicago, Illinois, July 1, 2003

Appellate Court Rules in Sun-Times' Favor on Kidnapping Questions

Damon Dunn recently achieved a major success on behalf of one of the Firm’s newspaper clients. On June 30, 2003, the First Division of the Illinois Appellate Court ruled in favor of the Chicago Sun‑Times in a defamation and false light action that Deirdre Harrison had brought against it. The Sun-Times had published an article reporting a ruling in a federal case decided under international abduction law. In the federal case, the court ordered that Harrison, who had taken her minor child from her home in Italy to Chicago, must be returned to Italy. In her state court action against the Sun-Times, Harrison claimed that the newspaper libeled her and placed her in a false light by its headline in a front-page leader article that Harrison had "kidnapped" her daughter. The Sun-Times filed a motion to dismiss the defamation action, which was denied in part and granted in part. The Sun-Times then filed a motion to certify important questions for immediate appeal.

The Appellate Court was asked to decide (1) whether the complained-of kidnapping statement was substantially true, (2) whether the statement, contained in a front-page "leader" article, had to be read together with an inside article and, if so, whether it was capable of an innocent construction, and (3) whether the statement was a fair report of the federal case. The Appellate Court, in a decision written by Justice Smith, answered all three questions in the affirmative.

Harrison had argued that she was defamed and placed in a false light because she was not convicted of kidnapping. In its 24-page opinion, the Appellate Court rejected the argument, observing that the Sun-Times had used the term "kidnapped" to convey the gist or sting of the federal court’s finding that Harrison had wrongfully removed her daughter. Moreover, the court held that "common usage" rather than legalese controls the meaning of a purportedly defamatory statement.

In ruling that the kidnapping statement must be innocently construed, the Appellate Court held that a newspaper headline and the text of the article to which it refers should be considered as one document and read together as a whole, rather than in isolation. Moreover, considering the space limitations intrinsic in a front-page headline and leader, it was an accurate abridgement for the Sun-Times to characterize the federal court finding as kidnapping.

Damon Dunn of Chicago law firm Funkhouser Vegosen Liebman & Dunn Ltd. filed the motion to dismiss and wrote the successful appellate brief on behalf of the Sun-Times.

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