Libel

Scottish rock singer Bobby Gillespie and his girlfriend received undisclosed libel damages from a British newspaper that wrongly reported the singer was having an affair with supermodel Kate Moss. Solicitor Gerard Tyrrel told London's High Court this week that a News of the World article left readers with a "false and unfounded impression" that the Primal Scream singer was betraying his long-term girlfriend, stylist Katie England.

The California Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to review a lower-court decision limiting the amount of money that Harbor Municipal Court Judge Calvin P. Schmidt can collect if he wins his libel suit against the Orange County Register. In October, a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that Schmidt could not collect general or punitive damages from the newspaper, if he wins his lawsuit, because he served his demand for a retraction on the Register's editor.

A former City Council candidate has filed a claim against the city accusing Councilman Dick Stanford of making libelous statements about him in the Azusa Gazette, a monthly newspaper that Stanford owns. In the claim, Ron Legault alleges that Stanford in the September edition "made false, misleading, slanderous, fictitious lies and libel statements" that caused him to suffer stress and injury. Last year, Stanford easily defeated Legault, a longtime political rival, for the council seat.

Suzuki Motor Corp. of Japan lost one round in its battle against the publisher of Consumer Reports. U.S. District Judge Alicemarie Stotler in Orange County dismissed libel claims against Consumers Union over a July 1988 report asserting the Suzuki Samurai is unsafe. But the judge gave Suzuki 30 days to refile a product disparagement claim against Consumers Union. Stotler also agreed to hear a deceptive-business-practices claim against Consumers Union.

A federal appeals court Wednesday rejected a Berkeley psychoanalyst's latest attempt to revive his 12-year-old libel suit against freelance writer Janet Malcolm and the New Yorker magazine. A lawyer for Jeffrey Masson claimed that a trial judge hindered Masson's attempt to prove that Malcolm made up quotes in an article she wrote about him in 1983. Masson charged that the story ruined his career as a scholar. But the 9th U.S.

Gordon Ramsay has won a libel action against a British newspaper that accused the celebrity chef of faking scenes on a reality TV show. The Evening Standard claimed in November that parts of "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" -- in which Ramsay helps save failing restaurants -- had been exaggerated. It also claimed the program had put an incompetent chef into place at a struggling bistro featured in one episode.

Bestselling crime writer Patricia Cornwell has filed a libel lawsuit in Richmond, Va., against another author and is asking a federal judge to bar him from posting defamatory messages about her on the Internet. Cornwell wants the court to enforce an injunction issued in 2000 against Leslie R. Sachs and seeks a broader ban to prevent Sachs from further writing negatively about Cornwell on websites or allowing such statements to remain on those sites.

The late Gianni Versace's fashion empire accepted substantial though undisclosed damages for newspaper articles that appeared soon after he was shot to death in July. Lawyers for the Observer apologized for stories that implied there had been Mafia infiltration into, and money laundering within, Versace's companies. The Independent said it regretted any suggestion that Versace could not support his lifestyle through legitimate means.

A Los Angeles federal judge overturned a default judgment won by a Palo Alto businessman against the official Soviet newspaper Izvestia and released $456,000 in Soviet funds frozen to pay the award, it was reported Tuesday. U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon's clerk confirmed that the judge had issued two orders in the Raphael Gregorian case, but she declined to discuss them. However, United Press International reported late in the day that it had confirmed the contents of the orders.