Reed

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Ad Reed and Gallagher were rival candidates for the Third Assembly District in the November 2014 general election. In the weeks leading up to the election, Gallagher ran a 30-second ad with the following voiceover narration: “Jim Reed has launched a negative and misleading campaign, but just who is Jim Reed? Legal records show that Reed is an unscrupulous lawyer who was sued for negligence, fraud and financial elder abuse. Reed’s even been ordered to pay back fees he improperly collected from an elderly client. His victim said about Reed, ‘He saw a naïve widow and took advantage of me, raked me over the coals.’ Jim Reed. Not our values.” As the narrator speaks, the viewer sees grainy, black and white video of Reed in what appears to be one of his own campaign ads. The camera then pauses on a still photograph of Reed, with the words “Who is Jim Reed?” next to it. As the narrator introduces the subject of “legal records,” the camera cuts to images of printed pages on pleading paper, with the words “UNSCRUPULOUS LAWYER” superimposed on them.

2 Reed referred to his action as “libel,” but as his cause of action concerns communications made by mechanical…