If he's like most football coaches whose lives are ruled by won-lost records, Mike Price appreciates the power of statistics. All the more reason for the deposed Alabama coach to notice what the numbers say about plaintiffs prevailing over media companies in privacy rights and libel lawsuits: It doesn't happen often.
The nonprofit Libel Defense Resource Center, a respected if admittedly interested advocacy group, has studied libel and privacy rights cases dating back more than two decades. Among its findings:
n When media companies in libel and privacy rights cases filed for summary judgment — an early call to dispose of a lawsuit for lack of a supportable claim — courts granted their motions more than 75 percent of the time.
n Relatively few libel and privacy rights claims against media companies ultimately are decided by juries, and plaintiffs prevail in less than half of those. In 2001, 17 lawsuits went to trial. Plaintiffs won eight, according to the group.
There's little doubt that Price, who was dismissed by Alabama President Robert Witt, believes he has a legitimate grievance. On June 20, the coach filed a $20 million lawsuit against Time Inc. after Sports Illustrated, a Time Inc. publication, printed a juicy exposé about the coach, titled "Bad Behavior, How He Met His Destiny in a Strip Club."
Price, who lost a seven-year, $10 million contract, is appealing his firing to university officials. But those efforts apparently stalled this month when the school's mediation council voted not to send the matter to a hearing panel.
Price's attorney, Stephen Heninger of Tuscaloosa, did not return two phone calls to his office.
In his lawsuit, filed June 20 in Jefferson County Circuit Court, Price charges he was defamed by SI and the article's author, Don Yaeger, and asks for $10 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages.
The suit cites seven sections of the SI article that Price claims are false. The coach disputes, among other reporting in the story, that he went to a strip club soon after arriving in Pensacola, Fla., for a charity event, that he fondled a waitress at the club and that he engaged in sex with two women in his hotel room.
"I know I put myself in a bad position in Pensacola by drinking too much," Price said in a statement in May. "However, most of the events listed in the Sports Illustrated article simply didn't happen."
It's up to Price and Heninger to prove that saucy stuff is an invention of SI. Even that might not be enough for the coach to prevail.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in New York Times vs. Sullivan (1964), plaintiffs in privacy rights actions who are deemed public figures must prove actual malice. They must meet an extremely difficult standard — showing that the defendant knowingly published false statements or published them with reckless disregard for the truth of the statements.
Private individuals in privacy rights actions don't need to prove malice. Most states require only that they show that defendants failed to use reasonable care to make sure that defamatory statements about them were kept out of print.
As a football coach of a highly visible college program, Price almost certainly would be considered a "public figure." So he "has to prove the magazine either knew what it was publishing was false or that it had serious doubts about the accuracy of it," said David Kohler, a professor at Southwestern University School of Law and former general counsel at CNN.
Added Lee Levine, a Washington-based lawyer who represents media companies in press freedom cases, "The defendant does not have the burden of proving that what was published is true. They [the coach and his lawyer] have the burden of proving it's false."
SI has obvious reasons for wanting the Price litigation to go away quickly and quietly. There's the expense of a lengthy court battle, which would cost the magazine in lawyers' fees and productivity losses. Then there's the potential embarrassment that the magazine's editors and writers might suffer if their news-gathering methods were picked over during discovery and at trial.
Price could be aiming for a financial settlement. He certainly is concerned with upholding his reputation and resurrecting his coaching career.
"He's 57," said Norman Singer, professor at the University of Alabama Law School, who has taught sports law courses. "He may want to work a bit longer. And I'm sure he wants people to believe he has really been hurt and hasn't done anything wrong."
Mark Hyman (mhyman@sportsbusinessjournal.com) is a writer and lawyer.
