Defamation

A judge is allowing to proceed a lawsuit by a founder of Tesla Motors that accuses the electric car maker and its chief executive of defamation and other crimes. Martin Eberhard alleged that CEO Elon Musk unfairly blamed him for Tesla's well-documented financial woes in the media. Eberhard also is suing to recover a $100,000 severance package the company took away from him for allegedly violating a non-disparagement agreement.

A Los Angeles jury has awarded $370 million to five former employees of Guess Jeans co-founder Georges Marciano in a defamation suit they filed after the former chief executive accused them of stealing millions of dollars in funds and artwork.

In the eyes of Swedish documentary filmmaker Fredrik Gertten, his documentary "Bananas!" is a balanced, nuanced depiction of a trial pitting Nicaraguan banana plantation workers and a prominent L.A. attorney against a powerful multinational agribusiness. "It is a classical David-Goliath story," the director said in a phone interview last week. In the eyes of Dole Food Co.

When married real estate agents Scott and Melinda Tamkin read about an episode of the hit crime drama "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" that featured dirty-dealing, S&M-loving real estate agents named Scott and Melinda Tamkin, they didn't need to consult a forensic expert for an explanation. A house sale involving the Tamkins and a "CSI" producer had fallen apart four years before, and the producer was listed, in the same online description, as the co-writer of the episode.

Movie aficionados can add yet another website to their list of online sources of film news with the relaunch today of the entertainment magazine Movieline as an Internet publication. Movieline.com, the digital descendant of the glossy periodical that chronicled the movie industry and evolved into Hollywood Life before ceasing publication last month, will feature "up-to-the-minute blogs, reviews, reader-driven features, comedic commentary and high-profile interviews," the company said.

For the second time, a San Diego federal judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed against a local politician by a mobile home park firm controlled by Sam Zell, chief executive of the company that owns the Los Angeles Times. U.S. District Judge Napoleon A. Jones Jr., in a ruling disclosed Thursday, said the statements made in 2002 and 2003 by county Supervisor Dianne Jacob about the ill treatment of tenants at parks owned by Zell's company, Equity LifeStyle Properties Inc.

The editor of the New York Times said how proud he was of one of the paper's campaign investigations of John McCain. Another top Timesman praised the same story as "a powerful examination" of a politician's apparent blindness to ethical concerns. You would have thought they moved the Pulitzer Prizes up a couple of months when, actually, the crowing from the Newspaper of Record came Thursday, after its success in fending off a $27-million defamation case.

Samantha Ronson, the deejay companion of actress Lindsay Lohan, has reached a tentative settlement with a noted 1st Amendment attorney she sued for malpractice, her lawyer said Friday. The tentative deal also resolves a countersuit that New York attorney Martin Garbus brought against Ronson for failing to pay fees stemming from his work on a defamation suit against blogger Perez Hilton. "The parties have resolved the litigation to their mutual satisfaction," said Ronson's current lawyer, David Bass.

In the Britney Spears melodrama, Osama "Sam" Lutfi has long been cast as the villain. The 34-year-old Los Angeles native met Spears in a nightclub and was soon her constant companion, living in her mansion, riding in her cars and being introduced as her manager.

A South Korean doctor who accused a Los Angeles businessman of plagiarism has been convicted of defamation in his home country and ordered to pay a $750 fine. The Seoul Central District Court found that Dr. Jeong-Hwan Kim had damaged the reputation of Kwang Yul Cha, a fertility doctor and chancellor of a South Korean university with ties to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. The academic dispute led to a rare showdown with an American medical journal.