While it remains questionable whether the truth will set you free, at least the Minnesota Court of Appeals has held that it won’t cost $60,000.  That was the award given by a jury against blogger Johnny “Northside” Hoff for telling the truth with bad intent.

Eugene Volokh has been following this case since the beginning, providing a link to the Minnesota Star Tribune :

Controversial north Minneapolis blogger John Hoff must pay $60,000 in damages to a former Jordan Area Community Council executive director Jerry Moore, a jury in the civil case concluded Friday.

The Hennepin County District Court jury found that an “Adventures of Johnny Northside” blog post in June 2009 resulted in Moore’s firing from the University of Minnesota….

The jury ruled that although Hoff’s post … was true, he intentionally interfered with Moore’ employment contract with the University of Minnesota Urban Outreach and Outreach/Engagement Center….

Hoff wanted to get Moore fired, and to accomplish his nefarious task, he did the unthinkable: He told the truth.  The suit wasn’t grounded in defamation. because truth just makes a mess of such claims, but rather tortious interference with contract, which has become one of the go-to ways to circumvent cries of defamation when that darn truth gets in the way. 

While knee-jerk First Amendment lovers might scoff at a court that lets a case like this get past summary judgment, the fact is it not only made it to the jury, but got a favorable verdict and 60,000 smackers in damages. The truth was looking very expensive for Johnny Northside, and the implications for other bloggers was awfully problematic.

The question of whether bloggers are the “press” for first amendment purposes remains a bit murky. In the absence of some better definitions, it should. For now, any nutjob with a keyboard can call himself a blogger, and the content can range from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the Volokh Conspiracy and  SCOTUSBlog to  Crystal Cox and Horace Hunter.  Some blogs are reliable and informative, while others are utterly absurd and, at best, entirely self-serving.

To put it mildly, just because something looks and smells like a blog doesn’t assure that it’s worthy of the protections afforded the press.  On the other hand, blogs which spew crazy and bizarre opinions still deserve the protection afforded all opinion.  Not only is today’s outlier view the potential mainstream idea of tomorrow, but the marketplace of ideas can’t be open only to those which of which most people approve. The protection is most necessary to opinions outside the mainstream, since widely accepted thought doesn’t need much protection. 

As Eugene reports, the insanity has stopped (at least for the moment) in Hennepin County, as the verdict against Hoff was reversed.

Moore argues that Hoff is not shielded from tort liability simply because Moore could not prove the falsity of Hoff’s statement. Rather, Moore urges us to rely instead on Hoff’s motivation for making the allegedly defamatory statements. Moore asserts that because Hoff had an ulterior motive of getting Moore fired, he can be liable for the tortious-interference claims. We disagree.

When a person conveys unflattering and possibly damaging information to another person’s employer, it is unlikely that the motivation for conveying that information is borne out of affection. It is much more likely that the intent is for the employer to take responsive action — up to and including termination — based on the content of that information. Regardless of the motivation of the messenger, if the information conveyed is true, it is not appropriate for liability to attach. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 772 cmt. b. (noting that conveying truthful information is not “improper” interference “even though the facts are marshaled in such a way that … the person to whom the information is given immediately recognizes them as a reason for breaking his contract”).

Notwithstanding the Restatement (Second) of Torts and a ton of caselaw supporting the notion that truth, even when it costs a job, isn’t actionable, there is no shortage of public sentiment more focused on hurt feelings and bully-like motives these days. Indeed, at a time when much of the country seeks to criminalize conduct that gives rise to low self-esteem, the fact that a jury awards $60,000 hardly comes as a surprise.

Significantly, the Court of Appeals had no difficulty distinguishing where hurt feelings ended and free speech began:

Hoff’s blog post is the kind of speech that the First Amendment is designed to protect. He was publishing information about a public figure that he believed was true (and that the jury determined was not false) and that involved an issue of public concern. Attaching liability to this speech would infringe on Hoff’s First Amendment rights.

One of the basic difficulties in this case is that the free speech argument was “intertwined” with what the trial court found to be independent tortious behavior. It was alleged that Hoff had not merely posted the truth on his blog about Moore, but actively solicited his firing directly with his superior, calling him and haranguing him about Moore’s improprieties.

The appellate court found evidence of independent acts insufficient, in a very fact-specific analysis, suggesting that the protection of free speech wasn’t deemed unlimited. It’s unclear how this makes much sense, given that the “truth” published on a blog is protected, whereas the same “truth” told directly to Moore’s supervisor would, under the court’s analysis, cost Hoff $60k. Still, be warned that even truth, apparently, has its limits. 

This puts an end to a remarkably bad bit of law, and one that should scare the daylights out of any legitimate blogger who may be inclined to tell the critical truth about another person. Much of what’s said has the potential, if not likelihood, of causing hurt feelings, and potentially generate some serious damages and a bit of jury sympathy, if the natural consequences of critical truth produces real world results, such as the loss of business opportunity. 

An ancillary thought is that some bloggers fail to realize that typing stuff on the internet can produce actual harm to actual people, beyond a bit of appropriate butthurt, and even bloggers with good reason to write about a matter or person should consider whether they want to cause their target that sort of harm.  It’s a lesson I learned some years ago, and one that is often missed by people who assume they’re just having fun on the interwebz and no one will ever be harmed by their hobby.

While the law, at least in Hennepin County, appears to have retethered to the concept that the truth isn’t actionable, and the constitutional protection of free speech remains intact even if you wish another person ill, it reminds us that the protections remain in greater flux than we would expect given First Amendment doctrine and that we can anticipate plenty of growing pains before free speech on the internet will be conclusively defined and protected.