KEVIN MILLEN v. THE TIMES OF TRENTON PUBLISHING CORPORATION

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-3939-08T33939-08T3

KEVIN MILLEN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

THE TIMES OF TRENTON

PUBLISHING CORPORATION,

Defendant-Respondent.

________________________________________________________________

 

Submitted March 9, 2010 - Decided

Before Judges Carchman and Ashrafi.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New

Jersey, Law Division, Mercer County,

Docket No. L-3018-08.

Kevin Millen, appellant pro se.

Robinson, Wettre & Miller, L.L.C.,

attorneys for respondent (Keith J. Miller

and Michael J. Gesualdo, on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Plaintiff Kevin Millen appeals from an order of the Law Division dismissing his defamation complaint filed against defendant The Times of Trenton Publishing Corporation. On defendant's motion for summary judgment, Judge Innes concluded that plaintiff's complaint was time-barred by the applicable one-year limitations period established by N.J.S.A. 2A:14-3. We agree and affirm.

These are the relevant facts. On November 11, 1998, defendant published an article entitled "Former Player Arrested Again." The article pertained to plaintiff's arrest and arraignment in Washington, D.C. for allegedly stalking and threatening John Thompson, Jr., plaintiff's former basketball coach at Georgetown University. More than ten years later, on November 17, 2008, plaintiff filed a complaint in the Law Division alleging that the November 1998 article was defamatory.

Defendant moved to dismiss asserting that the action was time-barred. Plaintiff claimed that the limitations period does not apply because he just discovered the article on the internet. Judge Innes granted the motion, and this appeal followed.

N.J.S.A. 2A:14-3 provides that "Every action at law for libel or slander shall be commenced within 1 year next after the publication of the alleged libel or slander." This article was published ten years ago and is clearly beyond the limitations period.

Plaintiff urges that the limitations period should be tolled because of plaintiff's belated discovery of the article. The Supreme Court addressed that issue in Lawrence v. Bauer Publ'g & Printing LTD, 78 N.J. 371 (1979), where the Court noted:

The statute of limitations applicable to the present suit, however, does not measure the limitations period in terms of the 'accrual' of a cause of action. Instead, it provides that an action must be brought within one year of 'the publication' of the alleged libel. The Legislature has therefore fixed a precise date on which the limitations period begins to run. Once the date of the publication is determined, there is no need for further judicial intervention.

[Id. at 374-75.]

See also Presslaff v. Robins, 168 N.J. Super. 543, 547 (App. Div. 1979) ("[D]iscovery rule inapplicable to one-year statute of limitations for libel contained in N.J.S.A. 2A:14-3") (citing Lawrence, supra, 78 N.J. 371).

 
The additional issues raised by plaintiff are without merit, R. 2:11-3(e)(1)(E), and we conclude that the defamation action was time-barred.

Affirmed.

Plaintiff did not secure a transcript of Judge Innes' ruling but represents that the limitations period was the basis of the dismissal.

The reference is to the former Georgetown coach, John Thompson, Jr., as opposed to the present Georgetown basketball coach, John Thompson III.

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A-3939-08T3

March 22, 2010