Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, 472 U.S. 749 (1985)

Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders

No. 83-18

Argued March 21, 1984
Decided June 26, 1985
472 U.S. 749

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF VERMONT

Syllabus

Petitioner credit reporting agency sent a report to five subscribers indicating that respondent construction contractor had filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy. The report was false, and grossly misrepresented respondent’s assets and liabilities. Thereafter, petitioner issued a corrective notice, but respondent was dissatisfied with this notice and brought a defamation action in Vermont state court, alleging that the false report had injured its reputation and seeking damages. After trial, the jury returned a verdict in respondent’s favor and awarded both compensatory or presumed damages and punitive damages. But the trial court believed that Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, controlled, and granted petitioner’s motion for a new trial on the ground that the instructions to the jury permitted it to award damages on a lesser showing than "actual malice." The Vermont Supreme Court reversed, holding that Gertz was inapplicable to nonmedia defamation actions.

Held: The judgment is affirmed.

143 Vt. 66, 461 A.2d 414, affirmed.

JUSTICE POWELL, joined by JUSTICE REHNQUIST and JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concluded that:

1. The fact that the jury instructions in question referred to "malice," "lack of good faith," and "actual malice," did not require the jury to find "actual malice," as respondent contends, where the instructions failed to define any of these terms. Consequently, the trial court correctly concluded that the instructions did not satisfy Gertz. Pp. 753-755.

2. Permitting recovery of presumed and punitive damages in defamation cases absent a showing of "actual malice" does not violate the First Amendment when the defamatory statements do not involve matters of public concern. Pp. 755-763.

(a) In light of the reduced constitutional value of speech on matters of purely private concern, as opposed to speech on matters of public concern, the state interest in compensating private individuals for injury to their reputation adequately supports awards of presumed and punitive damages -- even absent a showing of "actual malice." Cf. Gertz. Pp. 755-761.

(b) Gertz, supra, does not apply to this case. Petitioner’s credit report concerned no public issue but was speech solely in the individual interest of the speaker and its specific business audience. This particular interest warranted no special protection when it was wholly false and damaging to the victim’s business reputation. Moreover, since the credit report was made available to only five subscribers, who, under the subscription agreement, could not disseminate it further, it cannot be said that the report involved any strong interest in the free flow of commercial information. And the speech here, like advertising, being solely motivated by a desire for profit, is hardy and unlikely to be deterred by incidental state regulation. In any event, the market provides a powerful incentive to a credit reporting agency to be accurate, since false reporting is of no use to creditors. Pp. 761-763.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE concluded that Gertz is inapplicable to this case, because the allegedly defamatory expression involved did not relate to a matter of public concern, and that no other reason was needed to dispose of the case. Pp. 763-764.

JUSTICE WHITE concluded that Gertz should not be applied to this case either because Gertz should be overruled or because the defamatory publication in question did not deal with a matter of public importance. P. 774.

POWELL, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which REHNQUIST and O’CONNOR, JJ., joined. BURGER, C.J., post, p. 763, and WHITE, J., post, p. 765, filed opinions concurring in the judgment. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, and STEVENS, JJ., joined, post, p. 774.