Word: libeling
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Congratulations were not necessarily in order. The Sunday summons was only the latest in a long series of legal actions that began eight months ago when Mrs. Esther James, a Harlem widow, was awarded $211,500 in a libel suit she had brought against Powell (TIME, April 12). Mrs. James has been trying to collect ever since. But so far, Powell has paid nothing. And his elaborate evasive tactics are an eloquent demonstration of how a whopping award for damages may leave the winner poorer than when he brought suit...
Simple Refusal. When the loser is insured, as is general in the auto-accident cases that make up the bulk of civil damage suits, payment normally is quick. In those liability and libel suits where huge judgments make huge headlines, the uninsured loser may pay up, post a bond and appeal - or resort to pure procrastination. Appeals are a prime source of delay and hold great promise for the loser's pocketbook. Only a few weeks ago, a New York appeals court lopped nearly $3,000,000 from the $3,500,000 libel verdict won in July...
Further attempts at delay are certain. In the libel trial itself, Powell's attorneys tried no fewer than 42 different times to postpone proceedings, and it is not likely they have run out of gambits. "This is the happiest day in my life," cried Mrs. James when the original verdict was in. But Powell's inspired procrastination ever since would seem to prove that happiness cannot buy money...
...CASE OF LIBEL, adapted by Henry Denker from Louis (My Life in Court) Nizer's account of the Quentin Reynolds-Westbrook Pegler libel fracas, is tame theater fare, but courtroom drama buffs may relish it, and Van Heflin is a peppery paladin of justice...
...Larry Gates makes an icy fork-tongued reptile of the man whose politics are somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan. But since the play is rigged for the triumph of good over evil, it is no more intellectually honest than a play that paints the world pitch black. Libel merely caters to an audience's smug self-righteousness, scarcely good growing weather for an examination of moral conscience. Playwright Denker ringingly declares for a responsible free press and due process of taw, which is about as audacious as sponsoring the Ten Commandments...