defamation

U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District of New York is considering whether to dismiss a private defamation lawsuit against an Iran sanctions group on national security grounds. During oral argument today, both the plaintiff's lawyer and U.S. Attorney Michael Byars said there has been no other cases in which the government has been able to assert the state secrets privilege without giving reason, Reuters' Emily Flitter reports. Ramos has been asked to dismiss the lawsuit without the government disclosing how national security is implicated in a lawsuit "by Greek businessman Victor Restis against a non-profit group for defamation. The group, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), accused him of illegally exporting oil from Iran."

An Alabama blogger was released from jail after being held in contempt for five months for not taking down blog posts that a judge had ruled defamed the son of a former Alabama governor, AL.com reports.

The spouse of Roger Shuler, who blogs at Legal Schnauzer, removed most of the subject matter covered by the judge's permanent injunction, AL.com reported. That led to the judge ordering Shuler's release.

Attorney Robert Riley Jr. filed a defamation lawsuit against Shuler for five blog posts claiming Riley had an extramarital affair, including one that said he impregnated his lover and paid for an abortion.

According to a Committee to Protect Journalists tally, Shuler was only journalist imprisoned in North America.

The Texas Supreme Court took up two cases this week on whether injunctions in defamation cases are constitutional: "Treading the gray area between freedom of speech and permissible government censorship, the Texas Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases Thursday that could determine whether state judges may permanently ban people from repeating information found to be false and defamatory," the Austin American-Statesman reports.

I reviewed the oral arguments, and one issue that came up is whether there is a constitutional right to defamatory speech under the Texas Constitution. One of the proponents for the constitutionality of post-judgment injunctions banning someone from repeating false and defamatory statements said that defamatory speech has no constitutional protection. But his opponent argued the Texas Constitution provides more protection than the U.S. Constitution for freedom of speech and that defamatory speech does have constitutional protection in Texas. If there is constitutional protection under state constitutional law , then a post-judgment injunction would be illegal and damages would be the only remedy for the parties who were defamed.

Reuters reports the "state-run New Express tabloid printed a front-page commentary begging police in the south-central city of Changsha to set reporter Chen Yongzhou free under the headline: 'Please release him."'

Chen was detained on defamation charges after "writing more than a dozen stories criticizing the finances of a major state-owned construction equipment maker," including that the company "engaged in sales fraud, exaggerated its profits and used public relations to defame its competitors," Reuters also reports.

Upshot? A reporter is arrested for alleged defamation after exposing alleged defamation and other alleged wrongdoings of a Chinese business.

A Virginia carpet cleaner allowed a rug cleaner to subpoena Yelp about the identities of negative reviewers of its business, The Raw Story reports. The carpet cleaner argues its business rival made the reviews. Yelp was found in contempt of court for not complying, and the Virginia Court of Appeals heard oral argument in the case this week. Advocacy group Public Citizen explains, according to The Raw Story, '“courts elsewhere have recognized that before stripping the defendant of a First Amendment right, they should take an early look at the case to confirm that the speaker’s statement appears to be false and defamatory, such that the company’s claim is viable. In this appeal, where the users’ original claims about [carpet cleaner] Hadeed’s practices are echoed by dozens of other users whose reviews have not been challenged as defamatory, Yelp urges Virginia to adopt that approach.”'

The Legal Intelligencer (my journalism alma mater) reports that a Philadelphia judge has overruled preliminary objections to a defamation lawsuit brought by a plaintiffs attorney against a firm that withdrew a job offer to him. The plaintif alleges Raynes McCarty withdrew its job offer to him based on false information it allegedly received from Anapol Schwartz after he had voiced concerns to that firm's leadership over what he believed to be discrimination based on his sexual orientation, The Legal reports.

After the British phone-hacking scandal led to the Leveson report, libel reform is on the horizon. One possible change is to make it so losing plaintiffs would only have to pay their legal costs, not the costs of their winning opponents.