Schafer v. Time, Inc.

142 F.3d 1361 (11th Cir. 1998)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed and Time (D) printed a cover story and claimed that a Palestinian group with connections to Syrian drug traffickers had targeted the flight to eliminate several of the passengers who were members of the U.S. counter-terrorism team attempting to rescue hostages held in Lebanon. The article claimed that the passengers had discovered a covert relationship between the Syrian drug traffickers and the CIA and they intended to expose the information on their return to the U.S. The article also stated that the American agent, Lovejoy, had become a double agent and it implied that the information Lovejoy exposed had led to the attack on 103. The article included a photo of a man identified to be Lovejoy with an explanation that he was the culprit. The photo became a major contention in the civil case filed by the families of the victims. That lawsuit claimed that Pan Am had failed to take adequate security measures. Pan Am’s lawyer wanted to bring to light the Lovejoy evidence, which would exonerate his client. There was just one problem. The man in the photo was Michael Schafer (P). P was working in his family’s janitorial business when he was identified as a traitor and double agent. P demanded and got a retraction from D and then filed suit for libel. The jury found no damages and P appealed. P contends that there was reversible error in permitting D’s counsel to question P regarding a number of specific acts of misconduct during cross-examination and by also excluding a memo discussing the credibility of D’s sources of the article.