The Right to Draw Inferences

In Los Angeles superior court last week, Judge Ellsworth Meyer answered a question that has been exciting Hollywood for three years. The question: May movie producers "blacklist" actors and writers who duck behind the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions about past or present Communist associations? Judge Meyer's unequivocal answer: yes.

With that ruling. Judge Meyer threw out of court a $51,750,000 damage suit brought by 23 actors and writers against 16 film studios, 20 top Hollywood executives (Samuel Goldwyn et al.) and three motion-picture trade groups. In 1951 the House Un-American Activities Committee questioned 18 of the 23 about Communism, and they refused to answer. The other five boldly ignored the committee's subpoenas. All were blacklisted. Each of the 23, including Oscar-winning Actresses Gale Sondergaard and Anne Revere and Oscar-winning Writer Michael Wilson, demanded $2,250,000 in "damages for loss of employment opportunity" and $1,000,000 in punitive damages.

Judge Meyer pointed out that Government workers, by specific law, must be fired if they resort to the Fifth Amendment. "It would be an anomalous result," he said, "if . . . those not in public service could enjoin or recover damages from" firms which merely adopt the Government's rule to their own business. The Judge concluded that the movie industry and the public would be entitled to draw "unfavorable inferences" from the plaintiffs' refusal to testify. Said he: "It would be unrealistic to say that the . . . employers, who are dependent upon the public for the continuance of their businesses, would not be 'justified under the circumstances' in making an agreement not to employ this group of plaintiffs. Their economic interest is self-evident."

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