Can journalists be held legally liable when their sources say things that are not true or that are mere allegations in an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit? That is, can journalism include only statements from sources that a reporter can independently prove are true? Those are among the questions that the Texas Supreme Court will have to answer in a libel case brought by neurosurgeon Byron Neely against local CBS affiliate KEYE and the station’s former investigative reporter Nanci Wilson.
Neely took exception to a 2004 report by Wilson on Neely, who had recently been disciplined by the Texas Medical Board for self-prescribing narcotics that the board said had the “potential to interfere with his ability to perform surgery.” Wilson’s piece came on the heels of the bitter debates over tort reform that in part put strict limits on medical malpractice suits in Texas, and it included stories of two individuals who said they’d been harmed by Neely – including Wei Wu, who jumped off the Highway 183 overpass onto MoPac after being told he had terminal cancer; his autopsy revealed that the cancer he’d been told had spread had not actually done so. Wilson also included details of a surgery Neely performed on former NFL player Paul Jetton, who alleged in a lawsuit that Neely had been negligent; Neely ultimately settled that suit without admitting any wrongdoing. Neely later sued Wilson, KEYE, and CBS parent company Viacom, arguing that they’d libeled him in their report, but the broadcasters won in a summary judgment that was later upheld by the Third Court of Appeals. Neely has continued to appeal, however, questioning in part the degree to which the so-called “third-party allegation rule” should apply. A date for the oral argument before the Texas Supremes has not yet been set.
This article appears in June 22 • 2012.