Actual malice

Articles published by the New York Daily News calling a former school principal a “firebrand” and a “principal of hate” are not defamatory because the statements are opinions, a New York Supreme Court judge ruled last week. The Supreme Court is the trial-level court in New York.

A federal judge in Miami today dismissed the defamation suit against a U.S.-based Haitian journalist and retracted a previous court order prohibiting him from ever publishing anything about the Haitian prime minister and a Florida businessman.

A New York judge this week dismissed a libel lawsuit by a Brooklyn judge against the New York Daily News and one of its former columnists.

John Hoff did not lie. Because of that, the Minneapolis blogger will not be held liable for the firing of a University of Minnesota employee.

A three-member panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday overturned a $60,000 award against Hoff, a blogger who publishes “The Adventures of Johnny Northside.”

A California appellate court upheld the dismissal of a libel suit brought by the head of a small startup tech company against the Internet blogging company Gawker Media.

A Virginia trial court threw out a $3 million libel verdict against a local newspaper, finding that a local school official failed to show that the allegedly defamatory article was published with actual malice.

A Florida judge has dismissed a former U.S. Senate candidate's libel suit against the St. Petersburg Times and The Miami Herald.

An Iowa jury awarded a state senator $231,000 in a defamation suit last week, finding that his opponent and the local Democratic Party defamed him in a TV ad that ran during the 2010 senate race.

State Sen. Rick Bertrand, a Republican, filed the suit with the Woodbury County District Court within 48 hours after the campaign ad aired claiming that Bertrand “put profit over children’s health,” according to the senator. The ad was paid for by the Iowa Democratic Party and approved by his opponent Rick Mullin, who would eventually lose the election to Bertrand.

A federal judge denied a motion for retrial in the case of a self-described investigative blogger, ruling that private figure plaintiffs do not have to establish “negligence” or “actual malice” to hold a non-media defendant liable in a defamation suit arising out of speech not on a matter of public concern.

A front-page teaser that wrongly stated that the subjects of a civil complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission were "arrested" was not made with "actual malice" -- intentional falsity or reckless disregard for the truth -- the New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled.

The decision means that the The Nutley Sun and its parent company, the North Jersey Media Group, are not liable to the plaintiffs in the false light case filed against them.