# Scott v. News-Herald

> Ohio Supreme Court · August 6, 1986 · 25 Ohio St. 3d 243

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6759436

## Case

- **Full name:** Scott v. The News-Herald
- **Court:** Ohio Supreme Court
- **Decided:** August 6, 1986
- **Citations:** 25 Ohio St. 3d 243; 25 Ohio B. 302; 496 N.E.2d 699; 13 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1241; 1986 Ohio LEXIS 728
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Holmes
- **Judges:** Brown, Celebrezze, Douglas, Holmes, Locher, Only, Sweeney, Wright
- **Cited by:** 193 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6759436

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that though there was no express statement that the appellant had committed perjury, the clear impact of the specific language in nine sentences was that the appellant lied while under oath, which weighed in favor of an actionable statement
- holding that statements which appeared in a newspaper article that the plaintiff perjured himself on the sports page, that was “a traditional haven for cajoling, invective, and hyperbole,” would most likely be construed as writer’s opinion
- holding that in determining whether a statement is defamatory in nature, courts must look at the objective and subjective context of the allegedly defamatory remarks, as well as the broader context of the entire story
- recognizing that whether an individual perjured himself “is certainly verifiable by a perjury action with evi dence adduced from the transcripts and witnesses present at the hearing”
- holding school superintendent is public official because he was responsible for implementing policies, expected to serve as a role model for students, and exercised supervisory authority over students

## Opinion text

Holmes, J.,
concurring. I shall not at any length answer Justice Brown’s very energetic exercise of his First Amendment rights other than to say that I, along with Justice Locher and Justice William Brown, dissented in Milkovich v. News-Herald (1984), 15 Ohio St. 3d 292 , in that I felt that the law as pronounced by the majority in such case had no rational legal basis and should have been rejected, and not established as the law of this jurisdiction. Having stated what I felt to be the correct law then, I now embrace those words again as if herein restated. It does no violence to the legal doctrine of stare decisis to right that which is clearly wrong. It serves no valid public purpose to allow incorrect opinions to remain in the body of our law. Therefore, I concur in the syllabus and the opinion of the majority herein.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6759436. Public record. Not legal advice.