Opinion
No. 43659.
February 11, 1976.
Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court for King County, No. 771084, James A. Noe, J., entered May 14, 1974. Reversed.
Action for defamation. The plaintiffs appeal from a summary judgment in favor of the defendants.
Olwell, Boyle Hattrup, by Lee Olwell, for appellants.
Foster, Pepper Riviera and Daniel J. Riviera, for respondents.
P. Cameron DeVore and Marshall J. Nelson, amici curiae, on behalf of Allied Daily Newspapers.
STAFFORD, C.J., and FINLEY, J., dissent in part by separate opinions; HOROWITZ and UTTER, JJ., dissent by separate opinion.
The plaintiffs (appellants), Tony and Faye Childress, appealed from a summary judgment dismissing their complaint for damages resulting from an allegedly defamatory article written by the defendant, Dick Clever, and published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, owned and operated by the defendant, Hearst Corporation.
The trial court found that the subject matter of the article related to a matter of public importance and dismissed the plaintiffs' complaint due to their failure to establish actual malice with convincing clarity as required in Miller v. Argus Publishing Co., 79 Wn.2d 816, 490 P.2d 101 (1971).
The issues raised and arguments made in support of the defendants' contentions were all, in effect, considered in Taskett v. KING Broadcasting Co., 86 Wn.2d 439, 546 P.2d 81 (1976), which we deem controlling and dispositive of the issues in the instant case. Therefore, for the reasons stated in Taskett, the decision of the trial court is reversed and this cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with that opinion.
I concur in part and dissent in part for the reason stated more fully in Taskett v. KING Broadcasting Co., 86 Wn.2d 439, 546 P.2d 81 (1976).
I concur in the result which Stafford, C.J., would reach, namely, that except for the litigants, the majority decision should apply prospectively only.
I dissent for the reasons set forth in the dissenting opinion in Taskett v. KING Broadcasting Co., 86 Wn.2d 439, 546 P.2d 81 (1976).
UTTER, J., concurs with HOROWITZ, J.