Reporter had no doubt about the truth of drug story

In early August, the state Supreme Court in Jackson threw out a $600,000 jury award levied against The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in a libel case.

The state’s highest court rejected the March 1997 jury award after determining there was no evidence that reporter Sid Scott or the newspaper harbored any doubts about the truth of a 1991 story linking a former chancery clerk to a drug bust.

The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo erroneously reported about the ownership of a truck seized in a drug bust in July 1991. The newspaper relied on information obtained by reporter Sid Scott from the state Tax Commission regarding the title and registration of the seized pickup, and reported that the truck belonged to Chancery Clerk Derwood McCullough, when in fact, it did not belong to him. McCullough had sold the truck to a person who was arrested in the raid. McCullough did not file for re-election in 1991, and claimed he did not do so because of the newspaper story.

The newspaper clarified in a follow-up story that title to the truck had transferred to someone else shortly before the truck was seized. McCullough nevertheless sued Scott and the newspaper for libel in October 1991 in state court in Houston, where a jury awarded McCullough $300,000 in actual damages and $300,000 in punitive damages in 1997.

Scott and the newspaper argued on appeal to the state Supreme Court in Jackson that the trial court confused “actual malice” — knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth, which public figures and officials must prove to recover damages for libel — with “malice in fact,” which merely refers to ill will or bad motive. McCullough, they argued, did not put forth any evidence that Scott or the newspaper knew that he was not the owner of the truck, or that they acted in reckless disregard for the truth. McCullough did not provide “evidence, circumstantial or otherwise” that they “entertained any doubt whatsoever that the information was true,” they argued. Finally, they argued that the trial court incorrectly permitted McCullough “to turn the proceedings into an examination” of what Scott should have done or should have known.

McCullough argued that Scott could not rely solely on state Tax Commission records that indicated he was the owner of the seized truck because Scott allegedly had seen him driving a different truck and because delays in title transfers can render Tax Commission records of ownership inaccurate. He also asserted that Scott and the newspaper opposed him politically and possibly wanted to hurt his chances for re-election by reporting that his truck was seized in a drug-related crime. Thus, there was “sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude, by clear and convincing evidence that Defendants Scott and Journal wrote and published the articles with actual malice,” he argued in briefs.

Specifically, he argued that the statements made in Scott’s article regarding the registration of the truck to him were not substantially true, and even if they were technically true, the “gist of the entire passage is false.” McCullough asserted that the article indicated he owned a truck that was confiscated from the home of a person arrested on drug charges because it had been used in drug transactions.

Additionally, McCullough argued that there was evidence that Scott and the newspaper “were not in favor” of him “as an elected official,” that they “did not care whether the articles were true or not,” and even that Scott “actually had some suspicions about the articles.”

In early August 1999, the state Supreme Court in Jackson overturned the jury verdict.

The court concluded that while Scott could have been more thorough in his research, there was no evidence that he actually doubted the truth of the facts he reported. “There is nothing which shows . . . that Scott or the Journal actually harbored any serious pre-publication doubts about the accuracy of the statements contained in the disputed articles.”

The court found “the overall structure of the disputed articles, especially the prominence of the tagline which emphasized the false fact that McCullough owned one of the seized vehicles, could reasonably create an implication in the mind of the reader that the plaintiff was somehow connected to illegal drug activity.” Nevertheless, the court held that McCullough’s claim could not survive under First Amendment principles requiring public figures to prove “actual malice” — knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for truth or falsity. (Journal Publishing Co. v. McCullough)