summary judgment

Thomas M. Cooley Law School has lost its claims of defamation, tortious interference with business relations, breach of contract and false light at the summary judgment stage against plaintiffs lawyers who posted on-line to solicit law-school clients and suggested in their proposed complaint that the law school used "'Enron-style'" accounting techniques, according to the opinion.

U.S. District Judge Robet J. Jonker of the Western District of Michigan said in his opinion that the law school is a limited purpose public figure involved in a public controversy about the value of a legal education for students. Even President Obama has weighed in on the future of legal education, the judge said in his opinion. A reasonable jury could not find by clear and convincing evidence that the defendants acted with actual malice, or reckless disregard for the truth of their statements, the judge said.

According to the opinion, the judge also found that many of the statements are protected exaggeration: "At least two statements fall within the protected category of exaggeration or hyperbole. These statements include the speculation that 'most likely schools like Thomas Cooley will continue to defraud unwitting
students unless held civilly accountable' and that Cooley 'blatantly misrepresents and manipulates its employment statistics ... employing the type of ‘Enron-style’ accounting techniques that would leave
most for-profit companies facing the long barrel of a government indictment and the prospect of paying a
substantial criminal fine,'" the judge said. "Further, the statement that 'Cooley grossly inflates its graduates’
reported mean salaries' may not merely be protected hyperbole, but actually substantially true."

Read the full opinion here: http://www.abajournal.com/files/Opinion_Granting_SJ_Motion.pdf

One blog notes "plaintiffs losing defamation law suits tend to look a lot worse coming out of the suit than they did going in": http://kevin.lexblog.com/2013/09/30/defamation-suits-versus-social-media...

California has beautiful weather and environs, which has led the growth of destination facilities for people seeking treatment for alcohol and other drug addictions. But that also has led to California localities enacting zoning rules to clamp down on such facilities. Last week, the Ninth Circuit reversed summary judgment in favor of  Newport Beach over that locality's zoning rules designed to inhibit those facilities, the OC Weekly reported. "There is direct or circumstantial evidence that [city officials] acted with a discriminatory purpose and has caused harm to member of a protected class [and] such evidence is sufficient to permit the protected individuals to proceed to trial,"' the OC Weekly reported from the opinion summary.

Treatment Magazine commented: "Last week's ruling should give pause to nearby jurisdictions from Malibu down the coast to neighboring Costa Mesa, many of which have been considering ways to restrict what admittedly has been rampant growth of Six-Bed Model treatment centers, as well as sober living operations, over the last 20 years up and down the California coastline. That growth has made Southern California a close second in size to South Florida as the nation's largest 'destination' addiction treatment services marketplace with clientele descending from all corners." The full piece is here: http://www.treatmentmagazine.com/newswires/432-california-appeals-court-...

(Thanks to Laura Elliott-Engel, my super fabulous mother and president of the board of Friends of Recovery New York to alerting me to the opinion.)