Word: lower-court
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...hurt people with the exercise of our freedom," says Spence. Six years ago he represented a former Miss Wyoming, Kimerli Pring, in a suit against Penthouse, which ran a tale about the sexual feats of a fictional Miss Wyoming. Though an appeals court threw out the lower-court award of $12.5 million, the case sent a shiver through publishers. Another shudder had come with a 1979 decision on the novel Touching. A California psychologist who ran nude therapy groups convinced a jury that he was the basis for an unflattering portrait in the book and won $75,000 in damages...
Both of the court's decisions last week were rooted in drawn-out battles. The New York case involves Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, which has been in and out of court since 1963 because of alleged discriminatory practices. Twice the union has been held in contempt for not obeying lower-court orders aimed at enhancing minority representation. In the latest phase of the case, the union, aided by the Justice Department, was trying to overturn a lower-court order that it work toward the goal of including 29% nonwhites among its membership -- a figure based...
...similar issues for eight years, agreed to a courtapproved settlement under which the city was required to give half of all promotions to minority fire fighters. The white-dominated union asked the Supreme Court to overturn the consent decree. By a 6-to-3 vote, the Justices ruled that lower-court judges do have broad discretion to approve such consent decrees remedying past discrimination...
...Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that a trial judge had erred in throwing out the case before it went to trial. Significantly, the appeals-court decision was written by Antonin Scalia, President Reagan's Supreme Court nominee, who is widely regarded as no friend of the press. Judge Scalia's view was supported by a now famous footnote in a 1979 Supreme Court ruling written by Chief Justice Warren Burger. In that case, Burger noted that in order to prove "actual malice"--the stiff standard public figures must meet to win a libel case--plaintiffs have...
...court's decision was heralded in newsrooms. "It's the high cost of litigation that has been stifling investigative reporting," said Anderson. "I think this decision will reverse all of that." Some First Amendment experts were afraid that the court had not given explicit enough criteria to lower courts, but the decision may have an impact beyond the strict letter of its language. "In some cases the melody is more important than the words," said Libel Attorney Bruce Sanford of Washington. Whether lower-court judges will face the music remains to be seen...