Nix v. Cox Enters. Inc. d/b/a The Atlanta Constitution

The Court of Appeals partially reversed the grant of summary judgment to a publishing company and its newspaper on an attorney's defamation claim arising out of two articles that characterized him as a criminal rogue lawyer.

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Franklin R. Nix, an attorney, sued Cox Enterprises, Inc. d/b/a The Atlanta Constitution, The Atlanta Journal, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Rochelle Bozman for libel per se by listing him in two published articles on March 9, 1998, as one of seven examples of criminal rogue lawyers, accusing him of attempting to solicit clients from another lawyer. The defendants placed his name immediately after the account of six lawyers charged with stealing their clients’ money or convicted of felonies as examples of criminal rogue lawyers requiring State Bar discipline. The article also stated that these criminal rogue lawyers needed policing, were crooked, inept, arrogant, dishonest, or did shoddy work. The defendants stated that Nix had solicited another lawyer’s clients and, immediately after listing such examples of criminal rogue lawyers charged or convicted of crimes, they inserted two lines in the article, regarding litigation between Nix and another lawyer over communication with the other lawyer’s client without disassociating language from the lawyers charged with criminal conduct. Accordingly, any reader might reasonably infer that the examples and statements about criminal rogue lawyers also included Nix as coming within the same description of characteristics as the criminal rogue lawyer listed before him. The relevant two lines of the article read as follows:

Another attorney, Franklin R. Nix, was scolded publicly by Fulton Superior Court Judge Wendy L. Shoob when Nix solicited business by sending letters to disgruntled Olympic vendors urging them to drop their current attorney and bring their business to them.

Nix v. Cox Enters. Inc. d/b/a The Atlanta Constitution

The Court of Appeals partially reversed the grant of summary judgment to a publishing company and its newspaper on an attorney's defamation claim arising out of two articles that characterized him as a criminal rogue lawyer.

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