Facts
- Kathie Lee Gifford and Frank Gifford were nationally known television personalities: Kathie Lee co-hosted a daytime talk show, and Frank was a sports broadcaster and a co-host of Monday Night Football.
- The National Enquirer, a tabloid publication with national circulation, published an article titled “Kathie Lee’s Baby Secret: The High-Tech, No-Sex Way She Got Pregnant.”
- The article stated that the Giffords were a “desperate couple” who resorted to artificial insemination to conceive a child.
- It further claimed the Giffords used a fertility-related procedure described as “sperm spinning” to increase the likelihood of having a girl.
- The article labeled the Giffords “hypocrites,” asserting they had repeatedly made public statements—based on their religious beliefs—that they did not believe in artificial insemination.
- The Giffords sued the National Enquirer in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, alleging the article’s statements were false and defamatory.
- The National Enquirer moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim.
Issues
- Under California choice-of-law rules for a nationally distributed publication, which state’s defamation law governed where the plaintiffs lived and worked in New York but sued in federal court in California?
- Under the governing law, could the challenged statements—including calling the Giffords “desperate” and “hypocrites,” and describing their alleged use of artificial insemination and “sperm spinning”—reasonably be read as actionable, provably false assertions of fact rather than protected opinion or rhetorical hyperbole?
- Did the complaint plead an actionable libel claim sufficient to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion?
Decision
- The court granted the National Enquirer’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
- Applying California’s choice-of-law analysis, the court concluded New York law governed because the Giffords lived and worked in New York and a substantial portion of any reputational harm would be felt there.
- Under New York defamation standards, the court held that the article’s charged characterizations—such as “hypocrites” and “desperate couple”—were not actionable in the manner pleaded, given their evaluative, value-laden nature and the way they would be understood by readers in the setting of a sensational tabloid story.
- Because the complaint did not identify actionable defamatory statements under the applicable legal standards, dismissal at the pleading stage was warranted.
Legal Principles
- In multistate defamation cases involving national distribution, a court may apply the law of the state where the plaintiffs live and work and where reputational injury is concentrated, even if the suit is filed elsewhere.
- Under New York defamation law, liability generally requires a statement of fact that is capable of being proven true or false and that carries a defamatory meaning; loose, figurative, or hyperbolic language is typically not actionable.
- Evaluative labels and epithets (for example, calling someone a “hypocrite”) are commonly treated as opinion rather than as precise factual representations, particularly where the publication’s tone and format signal a reader should expect commentary and sensationalism.
- On a motion to dismiss, courts assess the challenged language in the full publication setting to determine whether a reasonable reader would take the words as factual claims or as opinion; if the statements are not actionable as pleaded, the case can be dismissed without reaching later questions such as fault.
Conclusion
In Gifford v. National Enquirer, the Central District of California applied New York defamation law and dismissed Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford’s libel suit at the pleading stage, concluding that the tabloid article’s sensational characterizations—such as calling them “hypocrites” and “desperate”—were not actionable defamatory statements under New York standards when read in the publication’s full setting.