This case, still in the pleading stage, arose in connection with a highly popular television show which turned into a national scandal several years ago. According to the complaint, the plaintiff is a university professor who, in 1958, was induced to appear and participate as a contestant on a quiz show known as "21". The program, which was broadcast weekly, was designed to pit experts in various fields of knowledge against one another for substantial cash prizes and, at the
It is alleged that the exposure of the hoax caused the public to believe that all of the contestants were privy to the fraud and, as a consequence, the plaintiff claims in his first cause of action — which is the only one before us
Following service of the complaint, the defendants moved to dismiss the first cause of action on the grounds that it was (1) legally insufficient and (2) barred by the Statute of Limitations.
We do not find it necessary to decide whether the defendants' conduct was actionable. Even if we were to assume that the plaintiff could have stated a valid cause of action against them, the complaint before us would, nevertheless, have to be dismissed. In the first place, it fails to allege special damages with sufficient particularity, the plaintiff's speculations concerning the reasons for his failure to obtain a fellowship being simply not adequate for that purpose. (Cf. Rager v. McCloskey, 305 N.Y. 75, 81; Nichols v. Item Publishers, 309 N.Y. 596, 602.) While it might be possible to cure this deficiency by amendment of the complaint (see Gurtler v. Union Parts Mfg. Co., 1 N.Y.2d 5, 8; Kelly v. Overseas Investors, 18 N.Y.2d 622, 624), another and insuperable obstacle to maintenance of the action is presented by the bar of the controlling Statute of Limitations.
The harm assertedly sustained by the plaintiff — injury to his reputation — is precisely the same as that caused by defamation; indeed, in describing the plaintiff's cause of action for an "intentional wrong", the Appellate Division acknowledged that, although "the causative acts are different from those in defamation, * * * the effect, that is, harm to reputation, is the same." It is here that we find error in the Appellate Division's determination. The broad reach of the common-law cause of action for defamation is indicated in the Restatement of Torts. "A communication is defamatory", its authors have written (§ 559), "if it tends so to harm the reputation of another as to lower him in the estimation of the community or to deter third persons from associating or dealing with him." Thus, unlike most torts, defamation is defined in terms of the injury, damage to reputation, and not in terms of the manner in which the injury is accomplished. This is borne out by Comment a to section 559,
In applying a Statute of Limitations, this court declared some years ago, "We look for the reality, and the essence of the action and not its mere name." (Brick v. Cohn-Hall-Marx Co., 276 N.Y. 259, 264.) Concluding as we do that this cause of action sounds in defamation, it would be highly unreal and unreasonable to apply some Statute of Limitations other than the one which the Legislature has prescribed for the traditional defamatory torts of libel and slander. Prior to this case, all reported causes of action for defamation were pleaded as either one or the other. Accordingly, in enacting a one-year Statute of Limitations for "libel" and "slander" (Civ. Prac. Act, § 51, subd. 3 [now CPLR 215, subd. 3]), the Legislature should be understood to have established the policy that any action to recover damages for injury to reputation must be begun within that period. A contrary result might very well enable plaintiffs in libel and slander cases to circumvent the otherwise short limitations period by the simple expedient of "redescribing [the] defamation action to fit this new `noncategory'" of intentional wrong. (Kroner, et al., Torts, 1966 Annual Survey of American Law, pp. 209, 215.)
The plaintiff specifically alleges that "in late October of 1959 * * * the full extent of the `fixing' of the `21' quiz show became widely and publicly known."
The order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, without costs, the first question certified answered in the negative, the second question certified answered in the affirmative and the order of Special Term dismissing the first cause of action of the complaint reinstated.
Order of Appellate Division reversed and that of Special Term, insofar as it dismissed the first cause of action of the complaint, reinstated, without costs. First question certified answered in the negative; second question certified answered in the affirmative.
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