McClatchy Newspapers, Inc. v. Superior Court

—Petitioners McClatchy Newspapers, Inc., publisher of the Fresno Bee, and two of its reporters, Jeanie Borba and Royal Calkins (collectively petitioners), seek a peremptory writ of mandamus requiring the Fresno County Superior Court (respondent court) to grant petitioners’ motion for summary judgment in this libel case. Their petition requires this court to decide whether subdivision 4 of Civil Code section 47 grants the media an absolute privilege to report testimony and other evidence in a libel action even if that testimony was elicited and the other evidence was produced pursuant to a conspiracy to invoke immunity. We find petitioners’ report of testimony and documentary evidence that had a reasonable relation to the action in which they were introduced is absolutely privileged; we will grant a peremptory writ as prayed.

Procedural and Factual Matters

The real party in interest in this action, Paul S. Mosesian (plaintiff), filed in respondent court an action for libel and false-light invasion of privacy based on an article published in the Fresno Bee on May 31, 1982 (1982 article). The 1982 article reported portions of Fresno Bee reporter Denny Walsh’s testimony and…