## Facts

- Hal Bernson, a Los Angeles City Council member, learned in 1988 that a highly critical 36-page dossier about him was circulating in the media.
- The dossier alleged improper use of campaign and city funds, including extensive personal travel described as unusual and legally questionable.
- The dossier did not identify any author, sponsor, or distributor.
- Bernson obtained a copy but initially could not determine who created it.
- On February 6, 1990, reporters told Bernson they understood Browning-Ferris Industries of California, Inc. (BFI) prepared the dossier.
- Bernson contacted BFI’s counsel, who emphatically denied BFI had any direct or indirect responsibility for the dossier.
- In May 1991, a reporter told Bernson that Mark Ryavec, a political consultant, prepared the dossier on BFI’s behalf.
- Bernson filed a libel action against BFI, Ryavec, and others within one year of learning this information.

## Issues

1. Whether defendants who allegedly concealed their identities as authors of an anonymous defamatory writing may be equitably estopped from asserting the one-year statute of limitations for libel.
2. Whether the record permitted summary judgment on the limitations defense without a determination of the plaintiff’s reasonable diligence in attempting to discover defendants’ identities.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the judgment for defendants and remanded.
- The court held equitable estoppel may bar a limitations defense when the libeled person neither knew, nor through reasonable diligence should have discovered, the defendants’ identities within the limitations period.
- The court declined to decide diligence as a matter of law and directed the trial court to determine plaintiff’s diligence and related factual matters on remand.

## Legal Principles

- A libel cause of action accrues upon publication; equitable estoppel does not change accrual but can preclude a defendant from asserting a statute-of-limitations defense.
- A defendant may be equitably estopped from pleading limitations when the defendant’s conduct induced the plaintiff to delay filing suit within the statutory period.
- Concealment of identity can constitute the type of conduct supporting estoppel, but anonymity alone does not automatically create estoppel.
- Estoppel in this setting depends on (1) the plaintiff’s actual lack of knowledge of defendants’ identities and (2) whether the plaintiff, exercising reasonable diligence, should have discovered those identities sooner.
- Whether reasonable diligence was exercised is generally a fact-intensive inquiry not suited to summary resolution on an undeveloped record.

## Conclusion

The court held that when alleged defamers conceal their identities, equity may prevent them from relying on the one-year defamation limitations period if the plaintiff could not, with reasonable diligence, identify them in time; the case was remanded for factual determinations on diligence and related estoppel elements.


Bernson v. Browning-Ferris Indus. of Cal., Inc., 7 Cal. 4th 926 (Cal. 1994)