UPDATE: SLAPPing a Birther: Judge Tosses Defamation Suit Against Esquire

In a 20-page Memorandum of Decision in Joseph Farah et al. v. Esquire Magazine et al. (Case No. 11-cv-1179), United States District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Rosemary Collyer this week dismissed a defamation suit brought by a publisher and the author of a book questioning President Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship against Esquire magazine over a satirical post (see "TUOL" post 7/6/11).

Farah, creator of WorldNetDaily.com and political science Ph.D. and professed investigative reporter Jerome Corsi, author of Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President, sued Esquire magazine and blog poster Mark Warren for defamation, false light invasion of privacy, interference with business relations and violation of the Lanham Act [15 U.S.C. sec. 1125(a)], seeking $285 million in actual, compensatory and punitive damages over a post in the Politics Blog of Esquire.com that appeared May 18, 2011.

The plaintiffs support the position of  the so-called "Birthers" who believe President Obama does not satisfy the requirement set forth in Article II, Sec. 1 of the U.S. Constitution that a president be a Natural born citizen or U.S. citizen. Soon after President Obama released his long-form birth certificate from Hawaii, Warren wrote a post headlined: BREAKING: Jerome Corsi's Birther Book Pulled from Shelves!. Two hours after his intial post, Esquire published another item noting that Warren's piece was intended as satire.

In her decision, Judge Collyer said the Lanham Act count was inapplicable because it covers only commercial speech, not non-commercial satirical content such as the Warren post. She granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the suit under Washington, D.C.'s anti-SLAPP ("Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation") statute enacted in 2010 [D.C. Code sec. 16-5501], which enables a party to fend off lawsuits filed by one side of a political or public policy debate in an attempt to stifle speech presenting an opposing view.

The judge noted that satire is protected First Amendment speech and that the blog post at issue was clearly satire because it was denoted as humor, contained an exaggerated, decidedly un-newslike headline sporting an exclamation point, and used the same siren logo employed by conservative blogger Matt Drudge. Judge Collyer also pointed out that Dr. Corsi himself had originally dismissed Warren's post as a poor attempt at satire.

The plaintiffs' attorney reportedly plans to appeal the dismissal.

60 Minute Egg: Poultry Co. Scrambles to DC Circuit Court to Appeal Libel Dismissal

Image via WikipediaMar-Jac Poultry, Inc., v. Rita Katz et al (Case No. 11-0736), filed this week in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, seeks to reinstate a defamation suit incubating since 2003 until U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Rosemary Collyer last month granted summary judgment to defendants Rita Katz and CBS News' 60 Minutes.

As reported by the Legal Times blog, the suit arose from a segment aired by the popular tv news magazine in May 2003, involving an interview with researcher and self-anointed terrorist hunter Rita Katz, appearing in disguise and using an alias. In the story, Katz allegedly made defamatory comments about the Georgia-based plaintiff, purportedly linking it to terrorist financing.  The poultry farm was not verbally identified by name in the story, though the Mar-Jac name was displayed.

In her 34-page Memorandum Opinion granting defendants' summary judgment motion (Mar-Jac Poultry, Inc. v. Rita Katz et al. Case No. 03-cv-2422-RMC), Judge Collyer said, based on the flamboyant Katz's account, "no reasonable jury could find Ms. Katz's statements about laundering money through misreporting dead chickens were anything but rank speculation, surmise or hyperbole, engendered, perhaps, by her thrill at being involved in an undercover capacity."  In other words, going undercover in a henhouse is exciting stuff for a researcher used to being cooped up, as it were.

The plaintiff hopes for a less fowl reception from the appellate court.