Bindrim

This is an appeal taken by Doubleday and Gwen Davis Mitchell from a judgment for damages in favor of plaintiff-respondent Paul Bindrim, Ph.D. The jury returned verdicts on the libel counts against Doubleday and Mitchell and on the contract count against Mitchell.

*69 The court denied defendants’ motion for judgment NOV and granted a new trial subject to the condition that new trial would be denied if plaintiff would consent to (1) a reduction of the libel verdict against Mitchell from $38,000 to $25,000; (2) a striking of the $25,000 punitive damage award against Doubleday on the libel count; and (3) a striking of the $12,000 damage .award on the contract count against Mitchell.

Plaintiff consented without prejudice on these issues in any appeal to be taken from the judgment. Defendants appealed and plaintiff cross-appealed from the judgment reducing the original jury verdict.

Plaintiff is a licensed clinical psychologist and defendant is an author. Plaintiff used the so-called “Nude Marathon” in group therapy as a means of helping people to shed their psychological inhibitions with the removal of their clothes.

Defendant Mitchell had written a successful best seller…

Although I agree with the majority opinion authored by Justice Kingsley, I am writing a separate concurring opinion in order to comment upon the dissenting opinion. The dissent erroneously describes the majority holding as creating a cause of action for libel out of a work of fiction that attacks the techniques of “nude encounter therapy.” Because of this misconception with respect to the majority’s *83 holding, the dissent reaches the conclusion that the majority’s view “poses a grave threat to any future work of fiction which explores the effect of techniques claimed to have curative value.”

Had the defendant author of the work of fiction limited her novel to a truthful or fictional description of the techniques employed in nude encounter therapy, I would agree with the dissent that plaintiff had no cause of action for defamation. But here we have a description of a therapist as using insulting and vulgar language of the rankest sort in addressing his patients. Apparently the dissent does not consider that such language is capable of being considered defamatory of plaintiff in his professional role of a therapist practicing nude encounter therapy. The vulgarity purportedly used…

This novel, which is presented to its readers as a work of fiction, contains a portrayal of nude encounter therapy, and its tragic effect upon an apparently happy and well-adjusted woman who subjected herself to it. Plaintiff is a practitioner of this kind of therapy. His grievance, as described in his testimony and in his briefs on appeal, is provoked by that institutional criticism. 1 Plaintiff’s “concession” that he *85 is a public figure appears to be a tactic to enhance his argument that any unflattering portrayal of this kind of therapy defames him.

The decision of the majority upholding a substantial award of damages against the author and publisher poses a grave threat to any future work of fiction which explores the effect of techniques claimed to have curative value.

The majority opinion rests upon a number of misconceptions of the record and the law of libel. I mention a few of them.

Defamation.

Libel is a false and unprivileged publication which exposes any person to hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy, or which causes him to be shunned or avoided or which has a tendency to injure him in his occupation. (Civ. Code, § 45.) A libel which is defamatory without the…

This is an appeal taken by Doubleday and Gwen Davis Mitchell from a judgment for damages in favor of plaintiff-respondent Paul Bindrim, Ph.D. The jury returned verdicts on the libel counts against Doubleday and Mitchell and on the contract count against Mitchell.

The court denied defendants' motion for judgment NOV and granted a new trial subject to the condition that new trial would be denied if plaintiff would consent to (1) a reduction of the libel verdict against Mitchell from $38,000 to $25,000; (2) a striking of the $25,000 punitive damage award against Doubleday on the libel count; and (3) a striking of the $12,000 damage award on the contract count against Mitchell.

Plaintiff consented without prejudice on these issues in any appeal to be taken from the judgment. Defendants appealed and plaintiff cross-appealed from the judgment reducing the original jury verdict.

Plaintiff is a licensed clinical psychologist and defendant is an author. Plaintiff used the so-called "Nude Marathon" in group therapy as a means of helping people to shed their psychological inhibitions with the removal of their clothes.

Defendant Mitchell had written a successful…