Beauty Queen Wants World Peace, $5m to Pay Libel Award

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Retired U.S. District Court Magistrate Theodore Katz has sided with the Miss Universe L.P. pageant operator in an arbitration against former contestant and Miss Pennsylvania, Sheena Monnin, awarding the Donald Trump enterprise $5 million in a dispute involving alleged defamatory remarks about the competition.

Monnin resigned as Miss Pennsylvania last June, complaining about the Miss Universe pageant: "It's obviously rigged so the girl they want can shine; they kept several beautiful girls out for that reason."  A THR, Esq. blog post noted that Monnin repeated criticisms of the pageant on the Today Show. When Monnin turned in her Miss Pennsylvania sash, she was quoted on Facebook as saying: "In good conscience I can no longer be affiliated in any way with an organization I consider to be fraudulent, lacking in morals, inconsistent, and in many ways trashy."

Something fronted by Celebrity Apprentice maven Donald Trump trashy? Monnin better hope all the i's are dotted and the t's crossed on her birth certificate.

Katz found that Monnin's statements were false and made with actual malice, in arriving at the $5 million award. He said she complained about the pageant being rigged before she had any factual basis for making such an allegation. Neither Monnin nor her attorney participated in the arbitration proceedings, from which Katz drew an adverse inference in his 19-page decision.

"TUOL" wonders how anyone who watches the swimsuit portion of the Miss Universe pageant can suspect anything about the contestants isn't real.

N.J. Court Finds Donald Trump Lacks Appeal

Image via WikipediaIn a 30-page opinion issued this week, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey upheld a trial judge's dismissal of  real estate magnate/"The Apprentice" reality TV star Donald Trump's 2009 $5 billion defamation suit against the author and publisher of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald for writing that Trump was not a billionaire.

The 63-year-old Trump, through his attorney, assesses his personal worth as exceeding $7 billion, but then again, Trump also claimed that investigators he hired had scoured Hawaii and were going to blow the lid off President Barack Obama's birth certificate. TrumpNation author Timothy O'Brien estimated Trump's net worth as somewhere between $150 million and $250 million. A New Jersey Superior Court judge last May granted summary judgment for the defendants, holding that Trump, a public figure, could not show "actual malice," that is, that the defendants published false statements about him with knowledge of their falsity or with reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of the statements. Trump's attorneys argued that the defendants' reliance on anonymous sources constituted actual malice.

In Donald J. Trump v. Timothy O'Brien, Warner Book Group, Inc. and Warner Books Inc. (Docket No. A-614108T3), the appellate panel affirmed the lower court's ruling, stating: "There were no significant internal inconsistencies in the information provided by the confidential sources, nor was there 'reliable' information that contradicted their reports, so as to provide evidence of actual malice. Nothing suggests that O'Brien was subjectively aware of the falsity of the source's figures or that he had actual doubts as to the information's accuracy."

'The Donald' Trumped in Libel Suit

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The signature moment of NBC's "The Apprentice" comes when Donald Trump points his index finger at some hapless MBA-toting whiz kid and sneers: "Yaw Fyed." The 63-year-old real estate developer can probably better relate to how the mogul wannabes feel after N.J. Superior Court Judge Michele M. Fox yesterday threw out "The Donald's" $5 billion libel suit against author Timothy O'Brien and publisher Time Warner Book Group, Inc.

Trump sued in January 2006, concerning the defendants' October 2005, book, "TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald," in which O'Brien, now editor of The New York Times Sunday business section, relied on three confidential sources to gauge Trump's worth at between $150 million and $250 million. Trump countered his total assets in 2005 were closer to $5 billion or $6 billion, and claimed the defendants' book, which sold roughly 17,000 copies, damaged his reputation and credit standing with lenders.

In a 2007 deposition concerning the case (Trump v. O'Brien, Time Warner Book Group L-545-06), Trump lowered his net worth estimate to $4 billion plus, whereas a 2009 article in The Wall St. Journal placed the number at $788 million based on an appraisal performed in 2005 by Deutsche Bank.

Judge Fox read her decision from the bench in a conference call to lawyers, finding that O'Brien reasonably believed his figures were correct and that Trump did not produce verifiable numbers to show that O'Brien's estimates were false. Judge Fox ruled that Trump failed to show by clear and convincing evidence that O'Brien published the financial information with actual malice. Additionally, she held that O'Brien, as author, was an independent contractor thereby precluding a finding of vicarious liability against the publisher, Time Warner, for O'Brien's actions.

Trump decried U.S. libel law and indicated he would appeal Judge Fox's dismissal of his libel suit. No word from either Trump's mouthpiece or hairpiece.

Dwarfism Advocacy Group Files FCC Complaint Against 'Celebrity Apprentice'

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Little People of America, Inc. (LPA), a national nonprofit dwarfism support organization, has filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice," Donald Trump's reality program, over the April 5, 2009, episode's repeated use of the word "midget," which the LPA considers offensive.

The LPA likens "midget" to a racial slur and wants a proscription of the term on broadcast television. According to the FCC Form 475B (Obscene, Profane, and/or Indecent Material Complaint Form) submitted by the LPA, the episode at issue ridiculed little people not only by uttering the word "midget" numerous times, but also by cast members producing a viral video detergent ad entitled "Jesse James and the Midgets." Former NFL running back Hershel Walker, comic Joan Rivers, and country star Clint Black, not exactly a triumverate of national arbiters of good taste, discuss during the segment having little people bathe themselves in a bathtub full of detergent and then hanging them out to dry.

No comment as yet from Trump, NBC, or the FCC in response to the LPA complaint. The LPA (http://www.lpaonline.org) was co-founded in 1957 by actor Billy Barty, and claims to have more than 6,000 members worldwide.