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Shively v. Bozanich12/8/2000
CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION
Appeal from two judgments of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County.
Reginald A. Dunn, Judge. Judgment in B130905 reversed; judgment in B133983 reversed.
In another civil case arising out of the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson, Jill Shively (plaintiff) sued a number of persons, including Deputy District Attorney Peter Bozanich (Bozanich), the County of Los Angeles (County), and plaintiff's former boyfriend, Brian Patrick Clarke (Clarke) (sometimes collectively defendants) for slander. The alleged slander was first discovered by plaintiff following publication of a book about that trial. Judgment was entered against plaintiff on all of her causes of action against these three defendants following Clarke's successful demurrer to all of plaintiff's causes of action against him, and Bozanich's and County's successful motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff appeals.
We reverse both judgments, because the trial court erroneously held that the discovery rule did not apply to prevent the statute of limitations from accruing until plaintiff knew or should have known she had been defamed. We conclude that not only does the discovery rule apply to toll the running of the statute of limitations in defamation cases, it also applies when the defendant's alleged defamatory statement is republished in a mass media publication.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Plaintiff was mentioned in author's book. Among the things said of plaintiff in the book, and the statement over which she was to sue, was that " he's a felony probationer" (the words).
On October 22, 1997, plaintiff filed a complaint for damages for libel and slander against defendants, author, and publisher. She alleged that the words were slanderous and libelous per se because they necessarily accused her of having committed some felony (a crime), and because they were untrue.
Clarke was alleged to have spoken the words on or about June 1994, and the words were alleged to have been published to, in other words, heard by, Bozanich and his wife, Ferrero. This publication constituted the basis for plaintiff's first cause of action for slander against Clarke.
Bozanich, in a separate publication of his own (which also constituted a republication by Clarke) was alleged, "on or about 1996," to have spoken the words to the author, and to have done so within the scope of his employment by County. This publication constituted the basis for the second cause of action (for slander against Bozanich), the third cause of action (for slander against County under an agency theory of liability), and the fourth cause of action (against Clarke for slander, based on the principle that Clarke could have foreseen that Bozanich would repeat the defamatory statement to others).
Author and publisher were alleged to have published the defamatory words when, " n or about December 1996," they "published" the book containing the words, thus causing the words to be read by many people in and around Los Angeles. This publication constituted the basis for the fifth cause of action (for libel against publisher and author), the sixth cause of action (against Clarke for slander), the seventh cause of action (against Bozanich for slander), and the eighth cause of action (against County for slander). The sixth, seventh and eighth causes of action against defendants, like the fourth cause of action against Clarke, were all based on the principle that the republication of Clarke's and Bozanich's defamatory statements by author and publisher was reasonably foreseeable.
Of particular importance to this appeal, the complaint also spec
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