Opinion defense

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.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of a defamation claim brought by a restaurant owner against two journalists for their coverage of a 2009 "off the record" event at his restaurant where attendees included politicians, businesspeople and press members.

A federal court in Buffalo said last week that peer-reviewed journals, not courtrooms, are the proper place to vet scientific disputes. A libel claim brought by ONY, Inc., against the Journal of Perinatology for a negative study of an ONY pharmaceutical product was dismissed.

A North Carolina appellate court reversed part of a lower court's decision on Tuesday that could reignite a county judge's defamation lawsuit against a citizen activist for statements he made on Facebook criticizing sitting judges' support of a state senatorial candidate. The court held the activist was not constitutionality protected for making false statements, even if he claimed they were his personal opinion.

A series of newspaper articles and an editorial about a retired judge’s performance of his duties did not defame the former public official, the Virgin Islands Supreme Court ruled earlier this week.

The opinion by the court, which was established relatively recently in 2004, provides strong precedent for causes of action stemming from First Amendment-protected activities in the U.S. territory.

An Oregon blogger’s disparaging “almost stream of consciousness-like” statements about the trustee in a bankruptcy case are protected opinion under the First Amendment, a federal judge in Portland recently ruled.

The opinion in Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox highlights the importance of courts’ consideration of the “looser, more relaxed communication style” of the Internet in their evaluations of allegedly defamatory online communications.

A New York appellate court ruled on Thursday that courts need to consider the “freewheeling, anything-goes” writing style that prevails on the Internet when evaluating Internet communications for libel.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati (6th Cir.) ruled on Tuesday, in Bentkowski v. Scene Magazine, that a column concerning a local mayor is protected speech and not defamatory.

David A. Bentkowski, mayor of Seven Hills, Ohio, sued Scene Magazine and others, claiming that the local magazine's August 2007 article "The Bizarre Boy Mayor" was defamatory, but the court held that the article was protected opinion under the law.

The First Amendment protects statements in a “60 Minutes” story about the alleged use of a chicken processing company as a cover for terrorism financing in the United States, a federal court ruled earlier this week.

A federal judge has dismissed former U.S. Rep. Gary Condit's defamation lawsuit against Vanity Fair writer Dominick Dunne, who commented on CNN that he thought Condit knew more about a murdered D.C. intern than he had revealed.