Defamation Of Character

A family that claimed it was defamed in the bestselling book "Running With Scissors" has settled a lawsuit against the writer and his publisher. Author Augusten Burroughs and publisher St.

A $10-million defamation suit filed in Santa Monica against Paris Hilton by a woman who claimed the hotel heiress lied to the press about a run-in the two had over a man at a London nightclub has been settled out of court, attorneys for both sides announced Wednesday.

The Rev. Frederick K.C. Price may have two Bentleys, but a spokesman for his 22,000-member church says his Palos Verdes house doesn't boast 25 rooms and he definitely doesn't own a helicopter. A lawsuit Price filed Tuesday claims that ABC's "20/20" defamed him when it suggested otherwise, portraying him as a "hypocrite and thief" who financed an extravagant lifestyle with church funds.

Minnesota businessman Irwin Jacobs has sued Julie Roehm, the marketing specialist whom Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fired for alleged conflicts of interest, for defamation. Roehm had claimed in a federal court filing in Michigan that Jacobs had offered special deals to Wal-Mart Chief Executive H. Lee Scott Jr., including yachts and a diamond at reduced rates. Wal-Mart fired Roehm in December. Roehm then sued the Bentonville, Ark., retailer, claiming breach of contract and fraud.

In a significant development in free speech law, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that state courts may silence people who have defamed others. Ruling in the case of a 58-year-old Newport Beach woman who accused a local bar of serving tainted food and making sex videos, the high court said a judge may order Anne Lemen to stop repeating false and scurrilous statements that were found by a trial court to be defamatory.

Prince Frederic von Anhalt sued the Fox Network and Bill O'Reilly after the popular talk show host called Von Anhalt a "fraud" for saying he could be the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby. Von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor and one of three men to file a paternity claim for Smith's 6-month-old daughter, filed the defamation lawsuit against Fox and O'Reilly on Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. He is seeking $10 million in damages.

The California Supreme Court appeared to be divided Monday over whether courts may bar individuals from repeating defamatory statements instead of simply requiring them to compensate the victim monetarily. Meeting for arguments in Sacramento, at least three justices on the seven-member court appeared to believe so-called prior restraint orders may at times be justified. Chief Justice Ronald M.

The most important free speech case now before the California Supreme Court carries neither the heft of the Pentagon Papers nor the emotion of Nazis seeking to march in Skokie, Ill. In fact, the figure at the center of the case, a Christian evangelist in Newport Beach, makes a highly unlikely 1st Amendment hero.

The controversial owner of a Santa Barbara newspaper has sued the author of a magazine article critical of the paper's management, alleging it defamed the paper. The lawsuit calls the American Journalism Review article by Chapman University journalism professor Susan Paterno "nothing but a biased, false and misleading diatribe" against Ampersand Publishing LLC, the holding company of the paper's billionaire co-publisher Wendy McCaw, which owns the Santa Barbara News-Press. The suit, filed Dec.

Forget "Blonde on Blonde." Try "Lawyer on Lawyer." A character patterned after Bob Dylan in the upcoming biopic "Factory Girl," about the rise and drug-hastened fall of 1960s actress/model Edie Sedgwick, has prompted the folk-rock legend's lawyers to demand that screenings be canceled until they can view the movie before it is released later this month.