Defamation

A Texas judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit against a neighborhood blogger in Dallas, who was sued by a local bar owner for posting stories about customer violence and business ordinance violations.

A jury has awarded a Texas couple $13.78 million in damages in their defamation lawsuit against a number of individuals who anonymously posted more than 25,000 comments about them online.

"The jury found that reputations are priceless, or at least very expensive," said William Demond, a Texas attorney who represents Mark and Rhonda Lesher.

The Leshers were subjected to accusations of sexual assault, sexual deviancy, and all manner of crimes for approximately a year and a half, according to Megan Hassan, who also represents the Leshers.

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 U.S. District Court judge ruled that a civil lawsuit can continue against a Louisiana police chief and four officers accused of violating a former officer's constitutional rights. The court declined to dismiss the civil rights case against the officers who arrested the police veteran for criticizing the chief in email messages to a local newspaper.

The Virginia Supreme Court upheld a 2010 ruling that a former Newport News judge defamed a former court official when she told a newspaper the court official was “institutionalized.”

The New Mexico Supreme Court overturned an appellate court's decision and clarified grounds for defamation lawsuits in the state when the high court ruled against a retired Episcopal priest who sued parishioners who accused him of pedophilia.

The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's decision ordering The Indianapolis Star to reveal the identity of an anonymous commenter who was sued for defamation for comments made on the newspaper’s website.

In the ruling, the court said it weighed the First Amendment rights of the anonymous commenter versus the possible harm caused by the allegedly derogatory statements the commenter made on the website against the former head of a non-profit organization who filed the defamation suit.

New York courts do not have jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit over allegedly defamatory online statements about a rescue group's treatment of dogs that were written in Vermont by another dog welfare group, the New York Court of Appeals ruled last week.