Libel

A bill that would have substantially reformed Maryland's law against strategic lawsuits against public participation, or "SLAPPs," was defeated in the state Senate yesterday by a 25-21 vote.

S.B. 221 would have provided a number of substantial revisions to the law, including removing the requirement that lawsuits be brought in "bad faith" to qualify as SLAPPs, creating clear procedural rules for how to dispose of SLAPPs, and clearly defining what kind of conduct is protected by the law.

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.

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.

A former candidate for the Maine State Senate could not show that negative advertisements about him by an out-of-state Republican organization, unaffiliated with his opponent, contained false statements that were made intentionally or with reckless disregard for their falsity, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston (1st Cir.) ruled earlier this month.

Colorado's state judiciary committee took the first step this week in repealing a decades-old statute that criminalizes libel.

The bill passed with a 6-0 vote -- with one voting member absent -- on Tuesday, and is expected to go before the full Senate later this week.

“If you say civil libel law has a chilling effect, a criminal libel law might have a freezing effect,” said David Hudson, a scholar at the First Amendment Center and adjunct law professor at Vanderbilt University.

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.

A federal judge dismissed a $5 million libel lawsuit by a former tax preparer against a Virginia television station that allegedly referred to him as “unscrupulous.”