First Circuit Orders Further Proceedings in Sugar Documentary Defamation Case

The First Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that, while Dominican
Republic plantation owner executives are limited-purpose public figures
for purposes of a defamation lawsuit involving a documentary film critical
of their operations, the district court erred in denying a motion to compel
the disclosure of documents that could pertain to actual malice. Lluberes v.
Uncommon Productions, LLC, No. 10-2082 (1st Cir., decided November 23,
2011). So ruling, the court affirmed in part but vacated the district court’s
grant of summary judgment and remanded the case for a review of the
purported privileged documents in camera, if necessary, and a determination
as to whether sufficient evidence of actual malice has been shown.

The film apparently focused on living conditions in the company towns in which the plantation workers live and identified the plaintiffs “as bearing some measure of responsibility for their disrepair.” The plaintiffs argued on appeal that they were not limited-purpose public figures and that the lower court thereby erred in finding that they had to show actual malice to prove defamation. The First Circuit disagreed, noting that the plaintiffs actively pursued a public relations campaign to counter negative press about the company towns and had become limited purpose public figures in the Dominican Republic. The court refused to find that they were not also public figures in the United States because the controversy over the workers’ living conditions “was not confined to the shores of the Dominican Republic. Rather, it resounded in the United States for obvious humanitarian reasons and a less-obvious geopolitical one: a long-standing import quota system under U.S. law that subsidizes Dominican sugar producers, including the Vicinis.”