UPDATE: Court to Dan Rather: 'Courage-Your CBS Lawsuit Is Toast'

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The appellate division of the New York Supreme Court has tossed 75-year-old former anchor Dan Rather's $70 million lawsuit against CBS Corp and others. arising from Rather's participation in a  controveresial, ill-fated "60 Minutes II" story about former President George W. Bush's National Guard service.

In a unanimous seven-page decision written by Judge James Catterson, the appellate division held that Supreme Court Judge Ira Gammerman wrongly denied the defendants' motion to dismiss the breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty claims in Rather's Complaint (Dan Rather v. CBS Corp., Viacom, Inc., et al., Case No. 603121/07). Rather sued in  Sept. 2007, alleging fraud, and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, along with the contract and fiduciary duty counts.  In July, Judge Gammerman restored the fraud count he had previously dismissed in September 2008 (see "TUOL" 7/22/09).

Writing for the Court, Judge Catterson concluded that CBS did not owe Rather a fiduciary duty and had not breached his contract by warehousing him after the error-laden Bush story ran, because Rather continued to be paid by CBS. Likewise, the Court ruled that Rather failed to prove fraud or that CBS had hindered his future business opportunities in its treatment of him.

Rather's counsel said Rather, who now works at HDNet, would appeal the ruling. A complete victory for the denizens of Black Rock.  As Rather's late colleague Walter Cronkite was wont to say: "That's the way it is."