Gugliuzza v. KCMC, INC.

593 So. 2d 845, 1992 WL 9555
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 1, 1992
Docket23004-CA
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 593 So. 2d 845 (Gugliuzza v. KCMC, INC.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gugliuzza v. KCMC, INC., 593 So. 2d 845, 1992 WL 9555 (La. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

593 So.2d 845 (1992)

Lucille Gandy GUGLIUZZA, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
KCMC, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 23004-CA.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.

January 22, 1992.
Rehearing Denied February 21, 1992.
Writ Granted May 1, 1992.

*846 Roland V. McKneely, Bossier City, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Wilkinson, Carmody, Gilliam & Hussey, Shreveport by Arthur R. Carmody, Jr., for defendants-appellees.

Before MARVIN, C.J., and SEXTON, NORRIS, BROWN and STEWART, JJ.

MARVIN, Chief Judge.

Reversing the trial court on reargument before a five-judge panel as mandated by LSA-Const. Art. 5, § 8 B, we conclude that the petition of the widow and major son of the decedent states a cause of action for defamation of their memory of the decedent under CC Art. 2315 and LRS 14:47.

Defamation is the malicious ... expression... of anything which tends: * * * (2) To expose the memory of one deceased to hatred, contempt or ridicule ... LRS 14:47(2)

The widow and son alleged the factual elements of defamation, including the fact that, with others and shortly after the victim was murdered, they saw and heard a telecast by a Shreveport TV station, in which the announcer stated:

There is another possible motive for the death of Sammie Gugliuzza which officers are not talking about. It is rumored on the streets that Gugliuzza had gambling debts and ties to organized crime and that his murder is some sort of a pay-back.

In sustaining the peremptory exceptions against the petition of the widow and son, the trial court relied on Coulon v. Gaylord Broadcasting, 433 So.2d 429 (La.App. 4th Cir.1983), writ denied, which is factually indistinguishable.

Notwithstanding the authority upon which Coulon relied, we conclude that the defendant TV station owed a direct duty to the decedent's widow and son not to make a false and malicious expression that would expose their memory of the decedent to contempt or ridicule and cause them mental anguish damage.

Coulon stems from 19th century fears in the common law about awarding damages for mental anguish. Coulon's Louisiana authority was Pattison v. Gulf Bag Co., 116 La. 963, 41 So. 224 (1906). Pattison's Louisiana authority was Black v. Carrollton R.R. Co., 10 La.Ann. 33 (1855), the taproot of the Louisiana jurisprudence about mental anguish damages.

After Coulon, the taproot, Black, was overruled judicially and legislatively. Lejeune v. Rayne Branch Hosp., 556 So.2d 559 (La.1990); Act 782 of 1991, now CC Art. 2315.6. After Lejeune, Art. 2315.6 governs mental anguish damage suffered by a "bystander" plaintiff to whom only an indirect duty is owed. In that circumstance, the "bystander's" mental anguish arises out of the breach of a standard of care owed directly to the bystander's close relative.

This appeal concerns mental anguish damage allegedly suffered not by bystanders who are owed an indirect duty, but by plaintiffs to whom is owed a special, direct duty created by law. "[T]he Lejeune court *847 did not intend to modify ... recovery for emotional distress from a tortfeasor who owed the plaintiff a special, direct duty created by law ..." Clomon v. Monroe City School Bd., 572 So.2d 571, 575 (La. 1990). Our emphasis.

Lejeune, in our view, is pertinent solely because it squarely overrules Black and its progeny, which, by tracking common law authority for more than a century, ignored our civilian heritage.

Art. 2315.6, codifying most of the Lejeune holding, is important because it amounts to legislative approval that our civilian approach to troublesome areas of tort law be preserved and continued.

We shall attempt to expose the fallacy of the trial court's reliance on the Black- and Pattison-influenced 1983 Coulon holding and to explain why the rationale of Coulon is badly misplaced in 1992.

FROM BLACK (1855) THROUGH PATTISON (1906) TO COULON (1983)

Mr. Coulon brought a defamation action for words a New Orleans TV station telecast about his deceased son. Affirming the sustaining of an exception of no right of action, the court said:

It is basic that the tort action of defamation is personal to the party defamed [citing Prosser]. Relatives, no matter how devoted they may be, have no right to recover for the defamation of another, anymore than they would have the right to recover for the assault of another or the battery of another [citing Pattison v. Gulf Bag Co., 116 La. 963, 41 So. 224 (1906), and other cases]....
Thus, the general rule ... precludes a person from recovering for a defamatory statement made about another, even if the statement inflicts some injury upon the party seeking recovery. An affirmative right to sue in cases of defamation of a deceased person must come from the legislature. We cannot supply that right.

433 So.2d at 431-432. Our emphasis.

As additional authority and rationale, Coulon quoted from the explanatory notes in Restatement of Torts 2d:

Although ... desecration may constitute a crime, there can be no defamation of the dead as the word is used throughout this Restatement. The interest of ... relatives of a deceased person in his good name is not given legal protection by the common law. Therefore, unless a statute so provides, there can be no action for the recovery of damages for words... that reflect unfavorably upon the memory of a deceased person.

433 So.2d at 432. Our emphasis.

Even if the common law prevailed in Louisiana, we have a statute (LRS 14:47) which sets the standard of care owed to living persons and to the memory of a deceased person.

OUR CIVILIAN APPROACH

Common law tort authority may enlighten us, but it should not, and does not, control tort law in Louisiana which stems from our Civil Code Articles 2315 and 2316.

Under these articles the courts ... have been given a broad, general principle of legislative will under which we are required to determine when the interest of society is best served by allowing the act of man which causes harm to be accepted as a proper standard of conduct ... [citing Malone]. Our common law neighbors are required, conversely, to begin with the jurisprudence arising out of specific circumstances and to draw from this jurisprudence a general principle to govern future determinations. It has been said: "* * * The merit of the civilian general principle lies in the fact that the principle is wider than the cases decided and that hence it has within itself the potentiality of growth. [citing Stone]." Langlois v. Allied Chemical Corporation, 258 La. 1067, 249 So.2d 133, 137 (1971).

This broad codal concept of fault, however, does not automatically impose liability for Article 2315's "every act whatever." There must be found an "anterior obligation" creating a standard of care, the *848 breach of which causes damage and makes the act constitute legal or actionable fault. Pitre v. Opelousas Gen. Hosp., 530 So.2d 1151 (La.1988).

The framers conceived of fault as a breach of a preexisting obligation, for which the law orders reparation, when it causes damage to another,

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Bluebook (online)
593 So. 2d 845, 1992 WL 9555, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gugliuzza-v-kcmc-inc-lactapp-1992.