Summary judgement

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a defamation suit over online accusations of child sexual abuse could still proceed, even though the plaintiff could not show he was harmed.

The decision upheld a 2010 appeals court ruling that New Jersey First Amendment attorneys hoped would lead to a change in the law by the state's Supreme Court.

A federal trial court in California granted a newspaper's request for documents in a civil lawsuit involving a 2007 forest fire that burned down tens of thousands of acres northeast of Sacramento, ruling that the writings became public records once they were filed with the court.

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 Dallas land developer failed to show sufficient evidence to maintain his defamation lawsuit against the author and publisher of a book that criticized his involvement in a city's eminent domain plan, a Texas appellate court ruled yesterday in a case that exemplified why the state recently enacted an anti-SLAPP statute.

A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va. (4th Cir.) on Monday upheld the dismissal of a libel suit brought by former Army scientist Steven Hatfill against the New York Times.

Hatfill alleged that a series of columns by Nicholas Kristof implicated him in the 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five people and sickened 17 others.

The court held that Hatfill was a public figure because he publicly discussed the threat of bioterrorism and the nation’s lack of preparedness for such an attack both before and after the attacks.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) unnecessarily delayed responding to numerous records requests from a citizen’s group regarding documents on nuclear waste sites in New Mexico, a federal judge ruled earlier this week.

U.S. District Judge Robert Brack held that the complex nature of the documents was no excuse for not complying with the federal Freedom of Information Law.

The Media Law Prof Blog reports that a Georgia state appellate court upheld a summary judgment holding in a libel suit against the Savannah Morning News. 

The First Amendment Center reports that a federal trial court in Virginia refused to grant summary judgment for a county school board who barred a reporter from school property. Earl F.

The Reporter [Vacaville, CA] reports that attorney Malcolm Leader-Picone asked a superior court judge to reconsider his client’s libel claim on the theory of “mistake or excusable neglect of counsel” after he failed to submit a deposition from former Daily Republic Assistant City Editor Catherine Moy to the court.