Wynn v. Chanos

75 F. Supp. 3d 1228, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174396, 2014 WL 7186981
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedDecember 16, 2014
DocketCase No. 14-cv-04329-WHO
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 75 F. Supp. 3d 1228 (Wynn v. Chanos) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wynn v. Chanos, 75 F. Supp. 3d 1228, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174396, 2014 WL 7186981 (N.D. Cal. 2014).

Opinion

ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO DISMISS

Re: Dkt. No. 16

WILLIAM H. ORRICK, United States District Judge

Plaintiffs Stephen Wynn and Wynn Resorts, Ltd. (collectively, “Wynn”) allege that defendant James Chanos falsely stated that Wynn violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) at a symposium at the University of California at Berkeley. That is not what Chanos said. I find that Chanos’s statements regarding Wynn and - the FCPA violations do not constitute slander per se and were protected opinions, not assertions of fact. In addition, the complaint does not adequately plead actual malice. Chanos moves to dismiss and also to strike under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, claiming that his speech is a matter of public interest and that Wynn’s defamation claim fails as a matter of law.1 Because Chanos is correct, I GRANT the motion to dismiss.

[1232]*1232BACKGROUND

Stephen Wynn is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Wynn Resorts, a publicly traded corporation that develops, owns and operates resorts in Las Vegas and Macau. Compl. ¶¶ 2-3 (Dkt. No. 1); Mot. Dismiss at 3 (Dkt. No. 16). Chanos is the owner and manager of a private investment management firm. 'Mot. Strike at 3 (Dkt. No. 11). He is well known for his “short selling” investment strategy, which he notably used to profit from trading Enron stock.2 Id. at 3-4. Chanos also lectures at Yale and Stanford graduate schools. Id. at 4.

Chanos was invited to participate in an annual symposium for investigative reporting concerning the gambling industry, corruption, and organized crime in China. Mot. Strike at 7-8. This event featured a panel including Chanos, the former head of the Royal Hong Kong Police’s Criminal Intelligence Bureau, a New York Times reporter, and a convicted felon associated with organized crime in Macau. Tr. 1-3 (Dkt. No. 14-1, Ex. 1). The panel watched clips of and then discussed an upcoming television documentary that focuses on the gambling industry in Macau. Mot. Dismiss at 6. The event, which was held on April 25, 2014 at the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, was invitation only, and was attended by journalists, law enforcement, and government officials. Id.; Compl. ¶ 12.

After viewing a clip of the documentary, the moderator of the panel asked Chanos why he was “shorting Macau in China,” or placing short bets on the Macau gambling industry. Tr. 5. Chanos responded:

“... even I got a little nervous the deeper we dug into Macau and the more I got concerned that although I was long, the U.S. casino operators, like Mr. Adelson and Mr. Wynn, I began to really get concerned about the risk I was taking with clients’ money under Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and a variety of other, you know, aspects of exactly how business is done there. And, although, they hide behind the facade of the junket companies, increasingly, from a — if not across the legal line, to use my friend Bethany McLean’s term, it was “legal fraud.”
While they might be adhering to every aspect of legal requirements in what they were doing, there was still an attempt .to mislead and an attempt to obfuscate and I just couldn’t get comfortable with that.”

Tr. 6. Later on in the conversation, Cha-nos stated, “I mean, the fact of the matter is in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, almost any major company doing business in China knows something about the law; it’s a pretty broad law. Almost any company doing meaningful amounts of business in China probably could be found in violation of FCPA.” Id. at 41.

Wynn argues that these statements constitute slander per se, and that they charge Wynn with violating the FCPA. As evidence of the falsity of that position, it points to the fact that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Nevada Gaming Control Board (“NGCB”) exonerated Wynn of all alleged FCPA allegations. Oppo. Mot. Dismiss at 16 (Dkt. No. 31). According to Wynn, Chanos ignored this “readily available in[1233]*1233formation” and published his statements with reckless disregard as to their falsity. Compl. ¶¶ 19-21. Claiming that his statements are not slanderous, Chanos moves to dismiss the Complaint. Mot. Dismiss.

LEGAL STANDARD

I. MOTION TO DISMISS

A motion to dismiss brought under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) shall be granted where the plaintiff fails “to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Fed. R. Crv. P. 12(b)(6). In reviewing these motions, courts view all of the pleaded facts as true and in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Lee v. City of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d 668, 679 (9th Cir.2001). “Where a complaint pleads facts that are merely consistent with a defendant’s liability, it stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of entitlement to relief.” Ashcroft v. .Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (internal quotations and citations omitted). The court is not obligated to accept as true unreasonable inferences, conclusory statements, or allegations that “contradict matters properly subject to judicial notice or by exhibit.” In re Gilead Sciences Sec. Litig., 536 F.3d 1049, 1055 (9th Cir.2008).

In order to survive a motion to dismiss their defamation claim, the plaintiffs “must not only establish that [the assertions] about which they complain are reasonably capable of sustaining a defamatory meaning, they must also show that they are not mere comment within the ambit of the First Amendment.” Knievel v. ESPN, 393 F.3d 1068, 1073-74 (9th Cir.2005) (internal quotations and citations omitted).

II. SLANDER PERSE

Slander per se “is a false and unprivileged publication, orally uttered ... which ... [cjharges any person with crime, or with having been indicted, convicted, or punished for crime.” Cal. Crv. Code § 46(1). A claim for slander per se requires a showing that the defendant made a factual assertion, as opposed to an opinion, that was false. Baker v. Los Angeles Herald Exam’r, 42 Cal.3d 254, 259-60, 228 Cal.Rptr. 206, 721 P.2d 87 (1986).

The question of whether a statement constitutes an actionable factual assertion is a question of law for the court to decide. Franklin v. Dynamic Details, Inc., 116 Cal.App.4th 375, 385, 10 Cal.Rptr.3d 429 (2004). However, if “the statement is susceptible of both an innocent and a libelous meaning,” the question should be presented to the trier of fact. Id. Statements are more likely to be considered opinions when they contain “loose, figurative, or hyperbolic language which would negate the impression” that a speaker was seriously maintaining that a person committed a crime. Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
75 F. Supp. 3d 1228, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174396, 2014 WL 7186981, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wynn-v-chanos-cand-2014.