Parker v. Spotify USA, Inc.

569 F.Supp.3d 519

Dr. Chrysanthe PARKER, Plaintiff,

v.SPOTIFY USA, INC., High Five Content, LLC, Tradecraft Alternative, LLC, Jason Cavanagh, Defendants.

No. 5:21-CV-175-DAE

United States District Court, W.D. Texas, San Antonio Division.

Signed November 1, 2021

Jeffrey D. Small, Law Office Of Jeff Small, Roy R. Barrera, III, Golden & Barrera LLP, David A. Harris, Thornton, Biechlin, Reynolds & Guerra, San Antonio, TX, for Plaintiff.

Catherine Lewis Robb, Laura Lee Prather, Haynes & Boone, LLP, Austin, TX, for Defendants.

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS

David Alan Ezra, Senior United States District Judge

Before the Court is Spotify USA, Inc., High Five Content, LLC, Tradecraft Alternative, LLC, and Jason Cavanagh's ("Defendants") Motion to Dismiss filed on April 26, 2021. (Dkt. # 12.) Dr. Chrysanthe Parker ("Plaintiff") filed a response on May 28, 2021 (Dkt. # 16), and Defendants replied on June 25, 2021 (Dkt. # 21). The Court held a hearing on this matter on October 29, 2021. (Dkt. # 23.) After careful consideration of the memoranda filed in support of and against the Motion, the Court GRANTS Defendants' Motion to Dismiss for the reasons that follow.

BACKGROUND

This case concerns the alleged defamation of Plaintiff in Defendants' podcast "Son of a Hitman" about the late Charles Harrelson and the assassination of U.S. District Court Judge John H. Wood, Jr. (Dkt. # 1 at 1.)

Plaintiff, a law school graduate, alleges that she was outside of her apartment in Alamo Heights on the morning of May 29, 1979, when she bumped into Charles Harrelson. (Id. at 3.) Charles Harrelson had been hired by a drug lord named Jamiel "Jimmy" Chagra to assassinate Judge Wood. (Id. ) Plaintiff provided testimony against Harrelson during his trial for Judge Wood's assassination as an eyewitness, placing Harrelson at Judge Wood's apartment building on the morning of the assassination. (Id. ) Plaintiff states that "her testimony was by no means the only or even key evidence of his guilt." (Id. ) After his conviction at trial, Harrelson was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus five years, and he eventually died in prison in 2007. (Id. )

Plaintiff alleges that Harrelson's sons, Brett, Jordan, and Woody, have attempted to cast doubt on their father's guilt since his conviction, including by paying for his appellate "dream team" consisting of Alan Dershowitz. (Id. ) Plaintiff claims that Woody Harrelson has stopped his zealous advocacy of his father's innocence in more recent years, but Brett and Jordan have "picked up the torch." (Id. at 4.) Plaintiff alleges that Brett and Jordan Harrelson teamed up with Jason Cavanagh to create a ten-episode podcast series called "Son of a Hitman," which was produced by High Five Content, distributed by Spotify, and executive produced by Brett Harrelson. (Id. ) Plaintiff describes the podcast as taking itself seriously and attempting to style itself as a true crime podcast "reexamining loose threads of a crime for which the wrong man may have been convicted." (Id. )

However, Plaintiff goes on to state that the podcast only loosely tells Charles Harrelson's story of his life and crimes, "while teasing the audience with the never-substantiated possibility that there's more to his story than history knows." (Id. ) Plaintiff claims that the podcast is largely an attempt to muddy the waters of history and accuses the podcast host of "purposely avoid[ing] actually interviewing many of his sources, preferring to send a private investigator to do the leg work and using semiscripted conversations between the PI and himself to try to build tension." (Id. ) Plaintiff also maintains that the host speculates without evidence that witnesses were lying or had unknown motives or that unknown parties were actually involved with the murder of Judge Wood. (Id. ) Plaintiff alleges that the host implies to the audience that his life may be in danger but fails to inform the audience of how or why his life would be in danger. (Id. at 5.) She then states that the host also "almost never" attempted to confirm his interviewees' stories and often just let conversations and interviews play on the podcast without any verification. (Id. )

Plaintiff alleges that the podcast leaves the audience with the impression that "the truth is ultimately unknowable, not that this was a thoroughly litigated criminal proceeding, upheld twice by the Fifth Court of Appeals, and twice examined by the Supreme Court of the United States." (Id. ) She also alleges that Harrelson's sons' goal was "to expose the magnitude of how corrupt this trial was and how [his] ... father, Charles Harrelson, didn't receive a fair trial." (Id. ) Plaintiff says that the involvement of Brett and Jordan Harrelson can explain the tone and biased perspective of the podcast, and further, that she would not have agreed to be interviewed if she had known of their involvement. (Id. ) To this end, she claims that the host purposely concealed their involvement when he called her to a request an interview. (Id. ) Plaintiff states that she was familiar with the "Harrelson brothers' crusade to cast doubt on their father's conviction," but that she was unaware of the Harrelson brothers' involvement with the host or podcast in general as indicated by Brett Harrelson serving as an executive producer for the project. (Id. ) Plaintiff says that if she had known of the Harrelson brothers' involvement, she would have "predicted that any interview she gave would be twisted to give the impression Charles Harrelson had been railroaded by the federal government and that her eyewitness testimony was unreliable." (Id. at 5–6.)

In addition, Plaintiff alleges that the host labeled her "a very unusual witness," even using that phrase in naming the sixth episode of the series in which her interview was featured. (Id. at 6.) In that episode, the host apparently represented her as the star witness and gave particular emphasis to the fact that the FBI had used hypnosis when it conducted some of her interviews. (Id. ) The host called it a "display of questionable judgment." (Id. ) She further states that the podcast only used five minutes of her ninety-minute interview with the host, which were selected allegedly "to lead the audience to the conclusion that Charles Harrelson's conviction relied on information obtained through her hypnosis, and that Dr. Parker was complicit in a scheme to convict Charles Harrelson with fabricated evidence that should have been inadmissible." (Id. )

Plaintiff maintains that this was all false and that the podcast misrepresented the FBI's reliance on hypnosis by not disclosing that her hypnosis testimony was not relied on by the prosecution in making its case and that at the time it was discussed in the podcast, the host had been discussing testimony elicited from her by Harrelson's defense counsel. (Id. ) Plaintiff also asserts that the podcast implies she was only found by the FBI after a desperate search for evidence by saying that she was " ‘found’ after an extensive search for any witnesses," which is untrue according to her because she contacted the FBI as soon as she learned of the murder of Judge Wood. (Id. ) She also claims that the host knew that and still chose to lead the "audience to the false conclusion that Dr. Parker, as a young attorney and officer of the Court, was either complicit or actively participated in manufacturing evidence to perpetuate an unfair trial on Charles Harrelson." (Id. ) To support this claim, Plaintiff states that Cavanagh spoke with former FBI agents familiar with the Harrelson investigation and that he knew Plaintiff was not a "found" witness or a "star" witness and that it was not true that Plaintiff's testimony was obtained using hypnosis. (Id. at 7.) Plaintiff also asserts that the trial transcript supports the falseness of these representations from the podcast. (Id. )

As well as working as an attorney, Plaintiff is also "a multiply certified healthcare professional with over twenty years of experience as a treating practitioner, clinical researcher, and academic medical educator in the field of post-Traumatic stress disorder." (Id. ) Using her medical training, she testifies as an expert witness to help judges and jurors understand trauma and its various effects. (Id. ) Plaintiff asserts that a reputation for honesty and professionalism is necessary to be effective in this role, and that these traits must be unimpeachable. (Id. ) Plaintiff further claims that she has already faced questions in this role about her actions, character, and judgment in relation to the podcast. (Id. ) An unidentified entity has allegedly warned her that the podcast may result in her not being hired to testify in some or all cases, which would cost her employment and deprive "Courts of her expert perspective on trauma." (Id. ) She asserts that as a result, Defendants have "irrevocably damaged her reputation," while they have profited from her interview. (Id. )

Plaintiff asserts two causes of action against Defendants: defamation and fraudulent inducement. (Id. at 7–8.) Her defamation action is premised on the fact that Defendants "communicated false and defamatory statements about Plaintiff to third persons with malice," which resulted in Plaintiff suffering injury. (Id. at 7.) Plaintiff claims that she is a private individual who is not in the public eye for any purpose and that the defamatory statement concerned a matter of private concern. (Id.) Her fraudulent inducement action is premised on the fact that several weeks after her interview with Cavanagh, the podcast contacted her and asked her to sign a "Talent Appearance Release" document with an entity identified as Tradecraft Alternative. (Id. at 8.) Plaintiff alleges that she only signed the Release because of fraud, making it unenforceable. (Id. ) She asserts that Jordan Harrelson's involvement and Brett Harrelson's role as executive producer was material information that was...