Public Figures Category Archives — Page 3 of 3 — The Virginia Defamation Law Blog Published by Reston Defamation Attorney — Virginia Slander & Libel Lawyer

May 2, 2012

Public Figure Fails to Present Plausible Defamation Case

When a public figure alleges defamation, he must demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the speaker made the defamatory statement with actual malice. Judge Henry E. Hudson of the Eastern District of Virginia confirmed this heightened standard when he dismissed the complaint brought by Wayne Besen, the Executive Director of Truth Wins Out (“TWO”), a non-profit organization that addresses anti-gay behavior.

Besen filed a claim for defamation per se against the non-profit organization Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, Inc. (“PFOX”) and Gregory Quinlan, the President and CEO of the organization, after Quinlan made comments about Besen on local television and the organization’s blog. Specifically, Quinlan asserted that Besen once stated that someone should run Quinlan over with a bus or inject him with AIDS. On the PFOX blog, Quinlan also suggested that Besen had been fired from the Human Rights Campaign. Quinlan refused to retract either statement, even after Besen approached him about the comments.

Under Virginia law, defamation per se can be found where there are “words that impute to a person the commission of a crime of moral turpitude or which prejudice a person in his profession or trade.” If the plaintiff is a public figure, he must prove that the defendant published a false and defamatory statement with actual malice, meaning that it was made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth. Plaintiffs can be public figures for all purposes and in all contexts, or may be “limited public figures” with respect only to a limited range of issues.

April 16, 2012

Middleburg Writer Dee Dee Hubbard Turns Tables On Accusers with Defamation Suit

by Lee E. Berlik

Shortly after being found “not guilty” of embezzlement by a Loudoun County jury, Deanne “Dee Dee” Hubbard, editor of the Middleburg Eccentric, has filed a defamation action against her chief antagonists, Jack J. Goehring, III, and his wife, Mary Kirk Goehring, in Loudoun County Circuit Court.

For over a decade, Deanne “Dee Dee” Hubbard managed Middleburg, Virginia properties co-owned by Jack Goehring and his wife. She also lived in one of their rental properties with her son and daughter-in-law and she and her daughter rented space in one of the Goehrings’ commercial buildings. Ms. Hubbard was responsible for collecting rents from the Goehring properties. When Mr. Goehring discovered several rent checks had found their way into accounts Ms. Hubbard controlled, rather than into his accounts, he urged the Commonwealth Attorney’s office to prosecute Hubbard. Ms. Hubbard claimed she’d mistakenly marked the checks for the wrong accounts and set the accounts right as soon as the error was discovered.

Ms. Hubbard was prosecuted on fourteen felony embezzlement charges but was acquitted of all charges. Now, she and several family members have sued Goehring and his wife for waging “a campaign of malicious prosecution, libel, slander, and defamation.” The complaint paints Mr. Goehring as a vindictive man intent upon securing the charges against Ms. Hubbard and ratcheting up the surrounding publicity so as to defame and humiliate her. It accuses Goehring of filing an affidavit with the Middleburg Bank accusing Hubbard and her family members of identity theft, using his personal identifying information to obtain money, goods, services and other benefits without his authorization. The plaintiffs claim Goehring made false statements to law enforcement authorities that led to Hubbard’s arrest, arranged to have a friend photograph Hubbard being taken into custody in handcuffs, and then helped the photographer find a buyer for the photos. Ultimately, the photos appeared on television, in the local paper and on the Internet.

February 6, 2012

Jeremy Mayfield’s Defamation Claims Against NASCAR Heard on Appeal

by Lee E. Berlik

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is poised to rule on the appeal of NASCAR driver Jeremy Allen Mayfield, who is appealing the dismissal of his case involving claims of defamation, breach of contract, and deceptive trade practices. The trial court had dismissed the case based in large part on contractual release and indemnification provisions, including a release of liability arising from the publication of the results of any substance-abuse test.

Mayfield entered into a written contract with NASCAR in which he agreed to submit to random drug testing. On May 1, 2009, NASCAR asked Mayfield to submit to such a test. He complied and informed David Black, the president of Aegis, the chemical company performing the test, that he had taken Claritin and Adderall just prior to submitting a sample for testing. On May 7, 2009, Mayfield was informed that his test came back positive for amphetamines. After some confusion about the number of samples and whether Aegis tested the correct sample, NASCAR informed Mayfield that he was suspended as a driver and as the owner of a team. The president of NASCAR, Brian France, then held a press conference announcing to the world that Mayfield had been suspended for taking either performance-enhancing or recreational drugs.

After the press conference, Black informed reporters that the positive test result had nothing to do with any over-the-counter medication. As a result of these public statements, Mayfield and his corporate NASCAR team filed suit against NASCAR, France, Aegis, and Black, claiming that they were responsible for publicly defaming him. Mayfield argued in the suit that the statements were “intentional, malicious, reckless and false.”

March 31, 2011

AP Reporter Accused of Libel by Tweet

by Lee E. Berlik

Did an Associated Press reporter commit a foul against an NBA referee earlier this year by defaming him on Twitter during a league game? On March 14, 2011, National Basketball Association official Bill Spooner filed a federal defamation case against Associated Press sports beat reporter Jon Krawczynski for a brief item that Krawczynski wrote on his Twitter account that suggested Spooner was officiating a game dishonestly. During an NBA game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Houston Rockets on January 24, 2011, Krawczynski tweeted (twote?) that Spooner told Minnesota coach Kurt Rambis after an allegedly bad call against a Minnesota player that Rambis would “get it back,” and that Spooner went on to compensate for the incorrect call with a “make-up” call against Houston.

Spooner says that although he had a brief verbal exchange with Rambis about the foul call, he said nothing to the coach about giving anything back to the Timberwolves. His lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, says Krawczynski defamed him by telling Krawczynski’s Twitter followers in effect that Spooner had engaged in a “form of game fixing.” Spooner discusses in his complaint that the NBA was recently caught up in a controversy involving former ref Tim Donaghy, who pleaded guilty in federal court in 2007 after being accused of betting on games that he officiated.

The NBA itself discouraged the lawsuit, although it doesn’t believe Spooner actually cheated either. According to a league spokesman, “We investigated the content of the tweet when it appeared, found it to be without substance, and informed Mr. Spooner that we considered the matter closed. We subsequently advised Mr. Spooner’s lawyer that we did not think suing a journalist over an incorrect tweet would be productive.”

February 19, 2011

Prominent Defamation Lawyers Pursue Sherrod’s Libel Case Against Breitbart

by Lee E. Berlik

Last summer, United States Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign after conservative activist Andrew Breitbart posted online a speech that she had made 23 years before, when she worked for a nonprofit organization. The video that Breitbart posted supposedly showed that Sherrod, who is African American, had engaged in racial discrimination against a white farmer who needed financial assistance. It soon emerged, however, that the video clip that Breitbart placed online was significantly edited, and that in full context, Sherrod emerged as a supporter of equal opportunity rather than as a racist. After all that background was revealed, President Obama took the unusual step of formally and publicly apologizing to her. She was offered her job back, but she declined the offer. Instead, she hired a team of preeminent defamation attorneys to take Mr. Breitbart to court.

On February 11, 2011, Sherrod filed a defamation suit in D.C. Superior Court against Breitbart and two alleged accomplices, alleging that the depiction of her as a racist had caused her financial losses, physical symptoms, and “irreparable reputation and career damage.” Sherrod is seeking compensatory and punitive damages as well as a court order that Breitbart remove the offending material from his blog. Breitbart has not yet formally responded to the lawsuit, but he did say in a statement that he “categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech.”

Defamation suits against public figures are never easy. The First Amendment has been interpreted by the Supreme Court for several decades to give a very wide berth to people who criticize public officials or discuss matters of public concern. In general, celebrities or other public figures who sue for defamation cannot win unless they can show that the defendant made the offending statement with “actual malice,” which essentially amounts to knowledge that the defamatory statements were false, or reckless disregard for their truth or falsity.

February 4, 2011

Defamation Lawsuit Exposes Redskins Owner to Ridicule

by Lee E. Berlik

It doesn’t take a defamation expert to see the flaws in the $2 million libel lawsuit filed this week by Redskins owner Dan Snyder against the Washington City Paper. Mr. Snyder took offense at an article titled, “The Cranky Redskins Fan’s Guide to Dan Snyder: From A to Z (for Zorn), an Encyclopedia of the Owner’s Many Failings,” which contains a detailed list of reasons the author considered him a bad owner. Mr. Snyder also disapproved of an image of him, published with the article in question, on which someone had doodled devil horns and a mustache, which Mr. Snyder deemed “an anti-Semitic caricature of himself” which “forced” him to file the lawsuit. Talk about thin skin.

First of all, how ironic is it that Mr. Snyder claims he was forced to bring this lawsuit to protect his reputation and good name, and yet by virtue of suing the newspaper, he has stoked the interest of the media and triggered widespread public scrutiny into his prior activities, vastly increasing the number of people who will seek out and read The Cranky Redskins Fan’s Guide to Dan Snyder? Personally, I’m not a regular reader of the Washington City Paper and would never have known about the alleged defamatory statements had Mr. Snyder not called my attention to them by suing the paper. Mr. Snyder and his lawyers have alerted the otherwise complacent populace to a long list of alleged bad acts by the Redskins owner. Even if he wins the case, will he really have done himself and his reputation any favors by suing an outspoken critic?

But he won’t win. As I explained in an earlier blog post, not just any hurtful or offensive comment will constitute libel or slander upon which a plaintiff could successfully sue for millions of dollars. Defamation liability requires the publication of a false factual statement that concerns and harms the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s reputation. Statements of opinion, regardless of how unfavorable the opinion, are not actionable. Thus, calling Mr. Snyder a failure, likening him to the devil, and referring to the “stain” he supposedly left on the Redskins are all constitutionally protected as free speech.