Swedish tabloid sued in New York

[joeblow]

Swedish tabloid sued in New York

http://www.thelocal.se/21710/20090827/



An Israeli lawyer in New York has sued Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet following the publication of an article forwarding allegations that the Israeli army harvested the organs of dead Palestinians.

    * Swedish tabloid reported for racial agitation (25 Aug 09)
    * 'Aftonbladet must be held accountable for false allegations' (25 Aug 09)
    * Reinfeldt rejects Israeli calls to condemn paper (24 Aug 09)

Guy Ophir, who works in Israel but has an address in New York, submitted a civil action suit to the New York State Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Ophir is claiming $7.5 million in damages against Aftonbladet. He writes in his writ that the newspaper intended to libel Jews and Israelis, himself included, and that he should be compensated financially.

The writ concerns an article published last week and which, according to Ophir, had ill intentions and is hateful against Jews, Israelis and the Israeli defence forces.

Ohir's writ is directed against the freelance journalist, Donald Boström, who wrote the text, and Aftonbladet - which is described in court documents as "the Swedish union's newspaper".

But according to experts that news agency TT has spoken to, the case has little chance of success.

"As far as I can judge this lawyer has little hope of getting this case into court - as he is not himself named in the article," Bob Clothier at the Fox Rothschild law firm in Philadelphia.

Guy Orphir has been a soldier in Israel and he is reported to have told the Jersusalem Post daily that the article is "incendiary" and "something Goebbels could have written".

TT/The Local (mailto:news@thelocal.se">news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

What do you think? Leave your comment below.

[Ognir]

Shit he's only looking for 7.5 million, peanuts

[sullivan]

Oh, he's looking for financial compensation? That's new

[MikeWB]

Why not sue them in Israel? LOL

Bunch of bastards.

[Tomas O'Crohan]

Now, now, let's be "fair and balanced." Don't you think "Judge" Hellerstein will carefully conduct the proceedings, allow both parties to fully present their cases, refrain from showing bias to either side, refrain from excluding admissible testimony because it hurts the side he wants to prevail, appear respectful to the Palestinian relatives of deceased involuntary organ donors who testify to the circumstances of their relatives' demise and condition of the returned bodies and who then instructs the jury properly on the law and the burden of proof?

After the revolution, this is how cases are going to be handled. It's treason to handle them otherwise which is how they are currently being handled. Isn't the essential problem the consistent failure on our part to carry out the penalty for treason in the face of incessant treasonous offenses?

An Israeli files suit in NY. What does NY have to do with a Swedish newspaper reporting in Sweden about Israeli atrocities?

Oh, I forgot. "Judge" Hellerstein and his ilk "preside" there.

[Christopher Marlowe]

This will be dismissed for  summary judgment.  The plaintiff can't show that he was defamed as the class of persons referred to is way to large.  

In order to be actionable, a defamatory statement must be "of and concerning" the plaintiff. This means that a defamation plaintiff must show that a reasonable person would understand that the statement was referring to him or her. Of course, if a blog post or online article identifies the plaintiff by name, this requirement will be easily met. The plaintiff need not be specifically named, however, if there are enough identifying facts that any (but not necessarily every) person reading or hearing it would reasonably understand it to refer to the plaintiff. For example, a statement that "a local policeman who recently had an auto accident had been seen drinking alcohol while on duty" would likely be actionable because the policeman could be identified based on his recent accident.

Group Libel

Accordingly, defamatory statements about a group or class of people generally are not actionable by individual members of that group or class. There are two exceptions to this general rule that exist when:

    * the group or class is so small that the statements are reasonably understood to refer to the individual in question; or
    * the circumstances make it reasonable to conclude that the statement refers particularly to the individual in question.

See Restatement (2d) of Torts, § 564A (1977).

As to the first exception -- statements about a small group -- courts have often held that an individual group member can bring a claim for defamation for statements directed at a group of 25 or fewer people. The 25-person line is not a hard-and-fast rule, but rather the way courts commonly distinguish between a group small enough for statements about the whole group to be imputed to individual members and one that is too large to support such an imputation.

http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/ ... defamation

The case of Neiman-Marcus v. Lait, 13 F.R.D. 311 (S.D.N.Y. 1952), provides a good illustration of this general rule. In that case, the defendants wrote that "most of the [Neiman-Marcus] sales staff are fairies" and that some of the company's saleswomen were "call girls." Fifteen of the 25 salesmen and 30 of the 382 saleswomen at the store brought suit for defamation. Applying New York and Texas law, the court held that the salesmen had a valid cause of action, but the saleswomen did not. Even though the statement referred to "most of" the salesmen, without naming names or specifying further, the statement could be understood to refer to any individual member of this small group. The group of saleswomen, however, was so large that a statement that some of them were "call girls" would not be understood as referring to any individual member of the group.

As to the second exception to the rule against group libel -- when circumstances point to a particular individual -- courts have allowed defamation claims where the statement is facially broad, but the context makes it clear that it referred to the plaintiff. For example, Bill Blogger may be able to claim defamation based on the statement "all bloggers who attended the most recent city council meeting payed bribes to the mayor," where Bill is the only blogger who attended the meeting and readers will therefore understand the statement as being a thinly veiled indictment of him.

A company or organization can be a defamation plaintiff. In fact, the largest jury verdict every awarded in a libel case came in a case brought by a business plaintiff.