Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘libel slander and defamation’

Watch what you say about lawyers dept.: Amiel Cueto

A month ago St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan wrote a less-than-respectful column reporting on the course of a controversial defamation suit filed by disbarred local attorney Amiel Cueto. Now Cueto has notified McClellan that he regards him as having acted as an “agent” of the defendant in the suit, the Madison-St. Clair Record, and he’s threatening him with compulsory process as a witness. McClellan, whom Overlawyered readers will remember as having been the target of appalling legal bullying from Metro-East plaintiff’s lawyers in the past, retains his cheerful tone in a new column. (Bill McClellan, “Amiel Cueto has a gift, or maybe he doesn’t”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 31; “Accusations, lawsuit make me nostalgic”, Sept. 30).

The underlying action arose from an item that ran in the U.S. Chamber-supported Madison-St. Clair Record on Jan. 30, 2006, alleging that Cueto, who served six years in prison on an obstruction of justice conviction, had been spied at a meeting of St. Clair County judges. “Once one of the most powerful lawyers in Southern Illinois, Cueto was said to have ‘owned’ fifteen of St. Clair County’s seventeen judges in the mid-1990s,” the column further asserted. Cueto sued the paper, in a hard-fought action currently in process. In other actions, as Ted noted Feb. 26, Cueto has sued the Illinois Civil Justice League and its political action committee over a campaign ad, and a local resident over a letter to the editor in the Belleville, Ill. News-Democrat (Malcolm Gay, “Power Broken”, Riverfront Times, Sept. 5; Ann Knef, “Amiel Cueto takes aim at ICJL”, Madison-St. Clair Record, Feb. 20; ICJL, Dec. 4, 2006).

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Boston’s libel judge, out and about

Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy is well known to readers of this site for winning a $2 million libel suit (upheld by the state’s high court) against the Boston Herald, which had published pieces portraying him as soft on crime and insensitive to victims. When the paper wired Murphy $3.4 million in June (the sum included interest), Legal Times’s Tony Mauro cited the episode as one of a string that had led the press to be newly wary of having to face off in court against judges (“Press Frets as More Judges Sue for Libel”, Jun. 22). And in July a state disciplinary panel filed misconduct charges against Judge Murphy for having sent the Herald’s publisher a “bring me a check and keep quiet” letter that media critic Dan Kennedy termed “fascinatingly repellent“.

Judge Murphy has maintained that because of the stories the Herald ran about him, he has suffered debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]. As of Aug. 1, he was on sick leave for this disorder, although Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick rejected his request “to retire early with a special judicial disability pension that would have netted him 75 percent of his salary”. Which makes it all the more surprising that a Herald reporter-photographer team would catch the judge looking relaxed and at ease over two days at the races in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where he bet at the $50-minimum window, picnicked with his wife and chatted with other spectators. Call it one of those miracle recoveries (Jessica Van Sack, “Bay State judge plays ponies for two days at N.Y. track”, Boston Herald, Sept. 27).

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Imus lawsuit: nevermind

Kia Vaughn, the Rutgers basketball player who filed a defamation lawsuit against Don Imus over his “nappy headed hos” comment, has withdrawn her suit:

Vaughn’s attorney, Richard B. Ancowitz, said in a statement yesterday that the junior from the Bronx decided not to pursue the suit so she could focus on academics and training for the upcoming season. Rutgers, which made it to the NCAA championship game last season, is expected to be one of the top teams in the country.

“Her strong commitments to both (academics and basketball) have influenced her decision to withdraw the suit at this time,” Ancowitz said in the statement. “We feel that we have made a strong and important statement against such hateful speech with the filing of this lawsuit.”

Translation: “Whoops. This case might be a little harder to win than I thought.”

I think the Overlawyered discussion thread (Aug. 15) about the case lasted longer than the lawsuit.

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Judy Cates running for judgeship

Longtime readers of this site may remember attorney Judy Cates of Swansea, Ill., who filed and later settled a defamation lawsuit against St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan over a humorous and disrespectful column McClellan had written regarding a controversial class-action settlement Cates and other lawyers had reached with magazine sweepstakes firm Publishers Clearing House (Nov. 4 and Nov. 30, 1999; Feb. 29, 2000; for other watch-what-you-say-about-lawyers cases from Madison County and thereabouts, see Dec. 23, 2004). More recently, Ms. Cates served as elected president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association (Jul. 3, 2006). And now she’s thrown her hat into the ring for a seat on the state Fifth District Appellate Court, which sprawls over 37 counties. She’ll mount a challenge in the February Democratic primary to Jim Wexstten, who was appointed this year to fill a vacancy on the court and who is regarded as a moderate-to-conservative Democrat. The Post-Dispatch’s coverage forgivingly (or perhaps prudently) does not mention her having sued the paper’s columnist (Adam Jadhav, “Swansea lawyer to challenge appointee for judgeship”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 25; Nicholas J.C. Pistor, “Lawyer’s entry heats up race for appellate court”, Aug. 28; “Not recommended” (editorial), Madison County Record, Aug. 18).

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Updates – September 7

Some updates to earlier stories we’ve covered:

  • Spyware maker Zango, which embarked on a strategy of suing all the anti-spyware vendors that were calling its products spyware, has dropped its lawsuit against PC Tools, the maker of Spyware Doctor. (We covered the filing of the lawsuit on May 23.) Presumably it chose to drop the suit because it just lost a similar one against Kapersky Lab, with a federal court ruling that antispyware companies’ decisions of this sort are protected from suit.

    Eric Goldman has the details, including links to all the relevant decisions.

  • We reported on August 21st on the “crackpot” libel suit against blogger PZ Myers for an unflattering book review. Stuart Pivar, who filed the suit to great derision in the blogosphere, apparently dropped the suit a week later. (Even if the suit had legal merit, it was filed in the wrong court, so dismissal was just bowing to the inevitable; in theory, Pivar could refile in the appropriate court, but after the way constitutional law professor Peter Irons dissected the complaint, I think Myers ought to feel safe.) Free hint to readers: defamation lawsuits are almost always a bad idea. All they do is provide publicity to the very claims one is trying to suppress. Defamation lawsuits against prominent bloggers are even less sensible.
  • Two years ago, the Illinois Supreme Court put an end to one of the more fraudulent “consumer fraud” lawsuits ever filed, a $10 billion lawsuit against Philip Morris for marketing “light” cigarettes in accordance with federal guidelines. But even though the state’s highest court ordered the case to be dismissed, Madison County repeat offender Steve Tillery went back to a local court run by notorious Judge Nicholas Byron and tried to reopen the lawsuit. Finally, last month the Illinois Supreme Court definitively slapped down Tillery, telling Byron to dismiss the case.

    (Overlawyered’s sister site Point of Law has been covering this case.)

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Youtube lawsuit of the week: A&P vs. rappers

The only thing growing faster than the number of videos being shown on Youtube is the number of lawsuits arising from videos being shown on Youtube. The company itself has been sued by every media company in the known universe — led by Viacom — over copyright infringement by users of the website. And when Youtube isn’t being sued, the people who post the offending or infringing clips are.

A few weeks ago, a couple of college students posted a juvenile rap video about their work in a supermarket produce department. They filmed the video in the A&P supermarket where they were employed stocking shelves, but they never mentioned or displayed the A&P name. No matter; someone figured it out, and they were fired.

That could have been the end of that… except that A&P got the brilliant idea to file a $1,000,000 lawsuit against the two, for defamation. (Just a guess, but unless A&P pays a lot better than I suspect, they may not be good for the money.) And, shockingly, the video, which had just 2,500 hits earlier this week before the lawsuit, now has been viewed 60,000 times. Wonder who thought that this lawsuit was a good idea.

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Lawyers’ license to defame adversaries

The Tennessee Supreme Court confirms that lawyers in that state may publish potentially defamatory material outside the courtroom provided they are acting in quest of an “identifiable prospective client”. The case was filed by a screw maker against a law firm whose client-trolling website had asserted that the company’s deck screws were “defectively manufactured”. Without determining whether the phrase was defamatory, the court ruled that even if it was, the manufacturer would be afforded no legal remedy. (Day on Torts, Aug. 21; Simpson Strong-Tie Company v. Stewart, Estes, & Donnell, Aug. 20 (PDF)).

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Gordon Ramsay on U.S. litigation

“We were issued a writ because, God bless America, if the toilet paper is not thick enough and you come out with a rash on your ass [you’ll get sued].” — Scottish celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who is being sued over his upcoming reality-TV show “Kitchen Nightmares”. Martin Hyde sued Ramsay and the show’s producers after being fired during the filming of a “Nightmares” episode which depicted unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the Manhattan restaurant Hyde managed (which was closed by the city health board shortly after the taping); Hyde claims aspects of the show were staged, which Ramsay denies. (James Hibberd, “Ramsay Blasts ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ Lawsuit”, TV Week, Aug. 28).

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