Cummins

Defendants, Joseph J. Cummins and B’nai B’rith Messenger, a California corporation (hereafter Messenger), appeal from a judgment upon a jury verdict, as reduced upon the conditional denial of a motion for new trial, of $25,000 in general damages and $50,000 in punitive damages in favor of plaintiff, Heritage Publishing Company (hereafter Heritage), in a libel action between the two Jewish weekly newspapers, both headquartered here in Los Angeles.

We intend to reverse this judgment for failure to prove federal constitutional actual malice.

Facts

The Messenger contained a rather lengthy article in its July 19, 1974, issue, appearing under the byline of its editor, defendant Cummins, and headlined “Will Kramer Attempts To Justify Heritage Claim—‘Published Since 1914,’ There Was No Southwestern Jewish Review Ever Published in San Diego,” and “The Kramer Balderdash Can’t Evade The Facts That The ‘1914’ Claim Is False.” It referred to an earlier article appearing in the Messenger of January 25, 1963, on the same subject, headlined “Southland History Should Not Be Perverted,” in which was published a letter from Rabbi Trattner, who had been rabbi of Temple Beth Israel in…