Libel

Non-Sequiturs: 04.23.13

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* Federal judges are going to keep getting their cost of living raises. Sequestration be damned! [CBS DC]

* Florida passes “anti-Sharia law” law. Accidentally outlaws Jewish divorce instead. [Gawker]

* Why are people so stupid? Legal threat based on the name of a blog. Not the actual content, just the name. In a related note, we’d like to let everyone know that if we write about you, you are not, in fact, “above the law.” [Popehat]

* This is curious. Convicted of stealing $1 million dollars and walking away without jail time. And no written opinion to explain it. Moral of the story? Commit your crimes in Judge Carney’s court. [Navelgazing / OC Weekly]

* You’ve got to move fast if you want to take the profit off a disaster. Best part? A tipster says the explosion pictured isn’t even of the fertilizer plant explosion. [Baron & Budd]

* Newsmax videoed an interview with Logan Beirne, author of Blood of Tyrants: George Washington & the Forging of the Presidency (affiliate link). Apparently, George Washington was a badass. No kidding. [Newsmax]

* Well you must have expected something like this. Michael Shannon delivers a dramatic reading of the sorority girl’s memorable cease and desist letter….

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Lance Armstrong: Straight From The Horse’s Mouth

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Lance Armstrong

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not for Lance. His hemoglobin unnaturally oxygenated, Lance was going to hop on his banana seat and literally ride off into the sunset. He was just going to take his ball and go home. And other jokes about his chosen profession and/or lack of testicles, plural.

Tomorrow, Lance Armstrong appears before our nation’s high priestess of contrition to blubber and wail. Lance Armstrong cheated in a sport that very few people in this country care about. I’ve written about this before. And before that. I have great difficulty ginning up the proper amount of outrage, schadenfreude, or whatever it is you’re supposed to feel when a world class athlete and jerk gets nailed like this.

It’s for this reason that the home stretch of this column will be written by a guest columnist. This writer was well-known for thriving in a sport that, like cycling, was similarly plagued by drug abuse and scandal.

I’m talking, of course, about….

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Lawsuit of the Day: A ‘Big-Shot’ Lawyer Sues His Trust-Fund-Having Daughter — for Defamation?

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A 43-year-old trust fund baby?

Talk about #RichPeopleProblems. And #DaddyIssues.

A prominent Manhattan lawyer is suing his own daughter. For libel. Because she allegedly harmed his reputation. By seeking an accounting of her trust fund. Which he set up for her and reportedly administers. Got that?

Yes, Dad v. Daughter. How could something this messed-up not be our Lawsuit of the Day? Especially given the claimed size of the trust fund, stocked with such goodies as Hamptons real estate?

It’s hard to get one’s head around these allegations, but the litigation is for real. Let’s take a look at the competing claims. And how much the trust fund was supposedly worth at one point — we’re talking seven figures here….

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Family Sues Daughter To Prove That They Are A Loving Family

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Watch out Tianna, your parents are right behind you…

You can run all the way to the Olympics, but you can’t hide from your family (rim shot).

It’s always nice when an Olympic story of overcoming hardship results in a lawsuit for libel and slander. Olympic sprinter Tianna Madison won the gold medal as part of the U.S. Women’s 4×100 relay. During the Olympics, Madison revealed that she had been the victim of molestation and that her parents had mismanaged her finances.

To which her parents said, “What”?

So, Madison’s parents did what most loving parents would do when their daughter says something they disagree with — they filed a lawsuit….

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Anal-Retentive Hyperlinking Helps Gizmodo Sidestep Defamation Suit

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The threat of getting sued for libel or defamation has always hung over the heads of media professionals, now particularly so in the blogging era. The truth is always the clearest, simplest defense when faced with libel claims. But there are other, less direct avenues one can pursue as a defense, if need be.

A lawsuit recently dismissed against Gizmodo shows off one of the more commonly overlooked ways to bolster a defense against defamation. Let’s just say there’s often a reason bloggers like to include all those hyperlinks…

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Quote of the Day: That Doesn’t Exactly Make Sense, Either

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Half of it’s nonsense, and the other half is more nonsense.

– Tony Abbatangelo, referring to blog comments in the course of responding to a defamation suit filed against his client, an anonymous internet commenter known only as “Lawyer.”

(What are the salacious comments that “Lawyer” is being sued over? Find out, after the jump.)

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Mother of ‘Toddlers & Tiaras’ Star Sues for Millions After Daughter Is ‘Sexualized’ on the Web

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Paisley Dickey (left) and Pretty Woman (right)

You don’t have to watch much reality television to understand that these days, many cable networks are trying to capitalize on the drama caused by little girls and their overbearing stage mothers. Take, for example, TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras, a show that that gives viewers an inside look at the often controversial world of children’s beauty pageants. Apparently the resultant mother and daughter tantrums were just too good to keep off the airwaves.

But in late 2011, viewers expressed outrage over the pageant industry’s tendency to sexualize children. After all, with mothers dressing their daughters like surgically-enhanced country singers, fake breasts and all, or hookers with hearts of gold, how could viewers be anything but horrified? In all honesty, some of these little girls — the ones who don’t aspire to be tax lawyers, at least — look like complete prosti-tots (see above).

This backdrop brings us to today’s Lawsuit of the Day, where the mother of one of these tiara-toting toddlers alleges that a well-known celebrity gossip site had a hand in scandalizing her daughter….

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U.K. No Longer Your One-Stop Shopping Spot for Libel/Defamation Issues?

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How long do we have to live under the world view of this prude?

Well now this would be interesting. Can you imagine living in a world where the United Kingdom wasn’t the worldwide meeting place for pissed off celebrities with no grounds for defamation/libel lawsuits?

It could happen. According to reports, Deputy British Prime Minister Nick Clegg is sick of England being a “laughing stock” when it comes to its plaintiff-friendly libel laws.

That would be awesome. I’m sick of living in fear that Harvard will sue me in the U.K. for defaming their existence by possessing their degrees…

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Syracuse College of Law Tries to Learn the Difference Between Satire and Libel

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Yesterday I was busy trying to keep bullies out of jail. Check out my editorial in the New York Daily News for a full discussion on how I would handle mean children. But while I was away, news broke that the Syracuse College of Law is conducting its very own witch hunt, which could lead to the expulsion and deportation of a kid accused of saying mean things on the internet.

I’m telling you guys, this country is going to hell, one ridiculous overreaction at a time.

If you missed the story, the ABA Journal has a nice summary of what’s going on at Syracuse. The facts are pretty straightforward: student writes a satirical blog which attributes funny, Onion-style quotes to real people. The real people get their panties in a bunch. Syracuse launches an investigation into whether or not the blog constituted libelous bullying of other students, and whether the student author should be expelled for a “code of conduct” violation.

Now, to be clear, if we are going to hold people accountable for being mean to others, expulsion (and not jail) is a far more appropriate response. But, to my mind, this isn’t libel. This is clear parody, and satire should be protected, not punished…

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Don’t Mess With Singapore

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Readers of the New York Times may have noted an odd correction/apology in the paper last week:

In 1994, Philip Bowring, a contributor to the International Herald Tribune’s op-ed page, agreed as part of an undertaking with the leaders of the government of Singapore that he would not say or imply that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had attained his position through nepotism practiced by his father Lee Kuan Yew. In a February 15, 2010, article, Mr. Bowring nonetheless included these two men in a list of Asian political dynasties, which may have been understood by readers to infer that the younger Mr. Lee did not achieve his position through merit. We wish to state clearly that this inference was not intended. We apologize to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong for any distress or embarrassment caused by any breach of the undertaking and the article.

What necessitated this rather back-handed apology?
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