Substantial truth

A New York federal judge has ruled that a dentist acquitted of fraudulently billing Medicaid for services he never performed will not be able to pursue a defamation claim against prosecutors who touted his indictment for a "million dollar Medicaid theft" in a press release.

Brooklyn dentist Leonard Morse was indicted in 2006 for larceny and ultimately acquitted the following year. He then sued the New York Attorney General's Office for defamation and other civil rights violations.

A Washington state appellate court on Monday upheld the dismissal of a defamation lawsuit filed by a Seattle transitional housing service against a local television news station, while avoiding ruling on a challenge to the constitutionality of the state's anti-SLAPP law.

The defamation suit stems from stories televised in 2010 by KIRO TV and later published on its website detailing the practice of U.S. Mission Corporation in using residents of its transitional shelters, some of whom had criminal backgrounds, to solicit door-to-door donations.

Reporters at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution did not libel a security guard, who was at first hailed as a hero after the 1996 bombing at Centennial Olympic Park, when they reported authorities were investigating him as a suspect in the bombing, the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled this month.

A statement that someone is a member of a certain prison gang, when he merely conspired with its members, is substantially true and therefore protected against a defamation suit, a Colorado federal appellate court ruled this month.

An incarcerated felon who placed a personal advertisement on a website is a limited purpose public figure who could not meet the heightened standard of proof of actual malice in his defamation claim against the Boston Herald and a Herald reporter for the paper's series on prisoners and online dating, a Massachusetts appellate court ruled earlier this week in LaChance v. Boston Herald.

A Texas appellate court last week affirmed the dismissal of an Austin neurosurgeon’s defamation suit against a local television station, thereby recognizing that accurate and fair reports of allegations against the subject of a broadcast are protected.