Word: libel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...conservative voting bloc that included Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia at its rightward end. He got a reputation as a consensus builder, ruling against affirmative action and busing but strongly supporting the First Amendment, notably in a high-profile decision favoring the Washington Post when it was sued for libel by Mobil chairman William P. Tavoulareas...
What some critics call "veggie libel laws," arose out of the 1989 controversy over the pesticide Alar. After 60 Minutes ran a report linking Alar to cancer in children, Washington State apple growers sued. After the court ruled in favor of the TV show, the agriculture industry turned its outrage into action. Working with farm lobbies across the country, it campaigned for new state laws lowering the burden of proof for plaintiffs suing over the bad-mouthing of food. So far, 13 states have passed food-disparagement laws, and a dozen other states are considering them...
TEXAS ("MAD, MAD, MAD") CATTLEMEN OCCUPATION: Killing bovines BEST PUNCH: Thirteen cattlemen have forced Oprah to move her talk show to Amarillo, Texas, on Jan. 26 for a multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit they filed under Texas' popular "veggie libel...
DIED. HAROLD ROTHWAX, 67, no-nonsense New York judge catapulted to prominence by the libel suit he brought against loose-mouthed radio talkster Don Imus; of complications from a stroke; in New York City. Though the public may have been fascinated by the flap with Imus, jurists were more intrigued by Rothwax's legal odyssey over the years from civil liberties lawyer to law-and-order judge. In an attention-catching 1996 book, Guilty: The Collapse of Criminal Justice, Rothwax argued that justice would be better served by clipping defendants' rights and giving police more leeway to seize evidence...
Nonsense, says Mike Godwin, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who argues that because all of us have equal access to it, the Net relegates libel and slander suits to the slag heap of history. "People can say bad things on the Net and circulate them to a million of their closest friends," says Godwin. "So what? The Net's a level playing field." In other words, if someone defames you, you can get online and fight right back. After all, Godwin points out, the Net has been around in one form or another for decades, and no libel...