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We provide you with essential tools to advance First Amendment and media rights, and a supportive community in which to discuss emerging legal issues and the future of communication.
Not a member yet?
We provide you with essential tools to advance First Amendment and media rights, and a supportive community in which to discuss emerging legal issues and the future of communication.
Jeff Portnoy is a partner at Cades Schutte in Honolulu. 1. How’d you get into media law? What was your first job? I had a journalism minor. I took a course at Duke Law School in the First Amendment and that led to the opportunity to become involved in media law. My first job is…
By Gamelah Palagonia Digital advertising depends on sharing and using consumer behavioral data, which may include selling that data to downstream third parties. Section 1798.115(d) of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), prohibits businesses from selling consumers’ personal information that they do not receive directly from the consumer, unless the consumer has received “explicit notice”…
No Substantial Similarity Under Any Applicable Test By Jamie Raghu On New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2018, professional performance coach and author of the book Market Mind Games, Denise Shull, filed an action against the creators of the hit premium television series Billions and the exhibitor of the series, SHOWTIME, alleging “that Defendants improperly appropriated…
By Neil A.F. Popović On September 12, 2019, a United States District Court in San Jose granted summary judgment denying recognition of a €2 million ($2.2 million) French judgment against art editor Alan Wofsy and Wofsy’s company Alan Wofsy & Associates. De Fontbrune v. Wofsy. The dispute concerns photographs of the works of Pablo Picasso. …
Requires Accounting Firm to Comply with House Subpoena By Karolyn Perry In October, a divided federal appeals court panel decided that Mazars USA, LLP, an accounting firm used by President Trump, has to comply with a subpoena issued by a House of Representatives committee. Trump v. Mazars (D.C. Cir. Oct. 11, 2019). The House Committee…
By Alexandra Perloff-Giles In a decision from September, the Second Circuit substantially limited the “express adoption” doctrine, which had been an important vehicle for FOIA requesters seeking disclosure of legal memoranda from the government. The decision came in The New York Times Co. & Charlie Savage v. United States Department of Justice, which addressed whether…
By Jon Buchan On September 13, 2019, the two-year battle by GateHouse Media and The Fayetteville Observer to unseal a North Carolina state court civil file ended with the court-ordered unsealing of every document in the file, redacting only the identities of the three juvenile plaintiffs who had brought claims of sexual abuse against a…
By Cynthia Counts and Brian Biglin Criminal defamation statutes have long been unconstitutional. Yet in some states, unconstitutional laws remain on the books with a mere footnote to indicate that the law cannot be applied. What happens, then, when law enforcement invokes such laws are to punish speech, such as a non-threatening post on Facebook?…
Must Allege Specific Facts to Plead “Actual Malice” By Benjamin S. Piper, Sigmund D. Schutz and Jonathan S. Piper A Maine Superior Court held that an undercover game warden qualified as a public figure, and dismissed his claims because he had not pled facts sufficient to make a claim of actual malice. Livezey v. MTM…
By Christopher Proczko On September 4, 2019, the Minnesota Supreme Court handed down a decision in McGuire v. Bowlin, 932 N.W.2d 819 (Minn. 2019) reversing the lower courts’ decision that a public high school coach was a public official and thereby allowing his defamation suit against one student athlete’s parent to survive summary judgment. The…
By Jessica Meek and Margaret Christensen The Southern District of New York recently granted summary judgment on a claim for damages and attorney’s fees brought by the parties who successfully defended a defamation claim under the applicable anti-SLAPP statute. Specifically, in Adelson v. Harris, 973 F. Supp. 2d 467, 504 (S.D.N.Y. 2013), aff’d, 876 F.3d…
By Daniela Abratt On October 16, 2019, a jury in Dane County, Wisconsin decided that a Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist must pay a grieving father almost half a million dollars for his denial that the Sandy Hook massacre occurred. Pozner v. Fetzer, et al. James Fetzer was ordered to pay $450,000 after a jury found…
A Scott County, Iowa jury unanimously sided with the Quad City Times, and two of its journalists, in a lawsuit brought by the former city administrator of Davenport, Iowa, who had claimed articles written by the paper had wrongly interfered with his contract with the city. Malin v Quad City Times et al. (October 4,…
Court Applies Intermediate Scrutiny By Erik Bierbauer and Michael Cort Last month, an Illinois Supreme Court majority applied intermediate scrutiny to uphold the constitutionality of the state’s “revenge porn” statute against a facial First Amendment challenge. People v. Austin, 2019 IL 123910, 2019 WL 5287962 (Oct. 18, 2019). By a vote of 5-2, the Court…
Once Antagonists, Now Allies By George Freeman The Rule of Law in the U.S. is being threatened as never before. The President appears thirsting to create a constitutional crisis. He is either ignorant of the cornerstone of our constitutional democracy, the Separation of Powers, or chooses to willfully ignore it; he attempts to delegitimize the…
Download Publication MLRC From the Executive Director’s Desk: The Judiciary and the Media BarOnce Antagonists, Now AlliesGeorge Freeman 10 Questions to a Media LawyerJeff Portnoy FIRST AMENDMENT Is Assange Entitled to Full First Amendment Protection?James Goodale LIBEL & PRIVACY Illinois Supreme Court Upholds “Revenge Porn” Law Against First Amendment ChallengeCourt Applies Intermediate ScrutinyErik Bierbauer and…