Melaleuca, Inc. v. Clark

If this appeal turned solely on the question of whether statements defendant and appellant Huida Regehr Clark has published about products distributed by plaintiff and respondent Melaleuca, Inc. (Melaleuca), are true, there is little doubt Melaleuca would prevail. There is simply no scientific basis for Clark’s conclusions about Melaleuca’s products, and the acceptable scientific evidence which is in the record entirely refutes Clark’s conclusions.

However, the law of defamation and the law of injurious falsehood require that a plaintiff prove far more than the publication of a false statement. Where, as here, the defendant has made false statements which disparage the contents of a product, the owner or distributor of the product is required to produce clear and convincing evidence the defendant acted with actual malice. A statement is made with actual malice when the publisher either knows the statement is false or has some serious subjective doubt about the truth of the statement.

Here the trial court erred in giving an instruction which permitted the jury to find actual malice on an objective basis. Because the jury found that Clark did not know her statements were…