False Light Defamation

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal defamation suit that should encourage Shirley Sherrod, the recently fired USDA employee who was a victim of so-called conservative journalists who pieced together "clips" of a speech she delivered to the NAACP, that made it appear that this African American federal public servant discriminated against white farmers in programming that Sherrod administered.  The concept of "false light" is that persons can defame you my manipulating and massaging video and audio to create a "false light" for the purposes of what was precisely done to Mrs. Sherrod, cost her, her job. 

"The case given attorneys for Mrs. Sherrod encouragement involves an ABC/20-20 story about a televangelist reported by right-wing correspondent, John Stossel (pic).  Here's reporter, Bob Egelko's story forthe San Francisco Chronicle story:  A federal appeals court reinstated a slander suit Tuesday against ABC-TV by a Southern California televangelist who was misleadingly shown on '20/20' as bragging about his wealth.

The ruling could come into play in another national media controversy - this one involving a U.S. Department of Agriculture official who was fired after a blogger posted a video that appeared to show her making racist remarks that in fact were taken out of context. The Rev. Frederick Price (pic, left) sued ABC and its then-correspondent, John Stossel, over the news program's use of a film clip of one of his sermons in a March 2007 program.   It showed him telling his congregation, 'I live in a 25-room mansion. I have my own $6 million yacht,' a private jet, a helicopter and seven luxury cars.

Stossel introduced the clip by saying Price boasts of his riches, and followed it with a discussion with a watchdog about ministers who hide their church's finances.   In fact, however - as ABC acknowledged in a subsequent apology and retraction - Price was speaking not about himself, but about a hypothetical person who was materially wealthy and spiritually unfulfilled.

Price is the founder and pastor of the Crenshaw Christian Center/Ever Increasing Faith Ministry, which claims 22,000 members and preaches the 'prosperity gospel' of financial reward to believers. He owns a $4.6 million house and a Rolls-Royce and travels the world in a church-owned jet, the appeals court said.

A federal judge dismissed his defamation suit, saying the film clip was 'substantially true' because Price is wealthy and has spoken about it elsewhere. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said an out-of-context quotation that distorts the speaker's meaning can be libelous.  The Supreme Court has established that the accuracy of a quotation is determined by 'loyalty to the speaker's intended meaning,' the appeals court said.

'The video quotation of Price's statement materially changed the meaning of Price's words,' and he is entitled to try to prove that the film clip was a knowingly false presentation that hurt his reputation, Judge Mary Schroeder said in the 3-0 ruling.

The decision was issued the same day Shirley Sherrod turned down an offer to return to the USDA, which fired her from a job in Georgia in July after video excerpts of one of her speeches circulated on the Internet.

The video depicted Sherrod as a racist who refused to help a white farmer, but it was actually taken out of context from a talk to the NAACP in which she discussed her past and the need to move beyond race. Sherrod says she is considering a defamation suit against Andrew Breitbart, the blogger who posted the video. If Sherrod sues, 'this decision should make her very happy,' said Price's lawyer, Andrew Glassman.

Despite ABC's apology to Price, he said, the minister suffered substantial harm to his reputation from a distorted telecast that was seen by millions.  Jeffrey Schneider, ABC's senior vice president for news, said the network is confident that it will ultimately prevail in the lawsuit."
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I've been working on a matter at my W-2 job, where a large area employer followed it's disabled custodian around, filming her for 3 calendar years.  Possibly hundreds of hours of video were obtained, and yet only 4 hours of surveillance were turned over to her attorneys, and of the 4 hours of video, the employer's investigator massaged together a "17 minute edit: with jump cuts to make it appear that this genuinely crippled woman is "able-bodied."  It's actually a pretty amazing Soviet-style manipulation of images intended to screw her out of her benefits; and, for the moment, it worked.

The attorneys at my day job are pursuing a "false light" defamation claim which has only recently been recognized, here, in OurState. The defendants are expected to argue that since they screwed her in a "workers' compensation administrative proceeding" their defamation of her was "privileged."  Ah, yes, the old affirmative defense of privilege to commit intentional harm.  It's actually pretty astonishing how often this argument has sway in OurState.

The Power of Words

A week ago, my friend Charlie brought me up short by explaining something to me about myself that I needed explained to me; it was about remorse or better yet the perception that I lack it.  


Periodically, in my life I have had to stop and look at something about myself usually words that apply to me, or more often than not words about myself that I apply to others judgmentally, blind to the "log in my own eye."  Words as my friend Gayle who writes the great Gayle's Bard Blog have enormous power.  Harold Bloom, in writing about Shakespeare offered the view that Shakespeare "invented the world" because Shakespeare's plays, and poetry created both the language we use (albeit as language has evolved) and the archetypes for our comedy and tragedy.  Even allowing for hyperbole, Bloom's point has tremendous salience.  


God created the universe, and God created our universe with the words, "Let there be light, and there was light."  Fiat lux. 


I did not realize when I began this blawg that in writing about stories taken from local websites I would be looking at so much darkness and evil.  Purely evil souls engaged in senseless morally bad acts of violence and hatred.  Child abuse, child rape, children killing one another adults killing children, heinous stomach turning butchery.  Narcissism run rampant ruining the live of naive and innocent bystanders, sudden unexplainable death and loss.  While the problems of my own creation are bad and depressing enough, I confess that I have been weighted down by this darkness, and in my career I thought I saw it all, and wrestled with pure evil thinking it had no power over me.  I was foolish and naive.  


There is a purpose in life and in part I am coming to believe that it is to receive and share light.  Unfortunately when you throw open the curtains on a long darkened room, you see chaos and filth.  This seems to me to be what is happening as I am letting light back into my tight little turd of a heart.  I have roared through this universe of mine oblivious to the power of my words and negative judgments, and while I still plan to write as long as I am able to, I believe that my only hedge against the darkness is to bring light.  The only way to bring light is through carefully choosing the words I use.


Does that mean a snark-free Bad Lawyer, not a chance.  It does mean that the goal in looking at or talking about the darkness that abounds is to remind you and me that we have a duty.  Let there be light.

Brainless, Boastful, Badgering, and Abusive

Persons of my generaation and education would declare their sophistication by saying, "I don't watch, television," which may indicate "sophistication" if instead you sat around reading Proust, Kiekegaard, and the New York Review of Books.  When I claimed not to be watching tv I wasn't doing all that much in terms of personal growth, usually drinking copious amounts of alcohol and playing pong; nonetheless, I do occasionally watch the tube.  I remember when COPS hit the air--I've watched enough television to "get" the parodies, send ups, and sequels.  I was not aware that a "reality show" called Female Forces had hit the air until now.  The show claims to feature "Brains, Beauty and Badges."

A Chicago area woman, Earn Best filed a lawsuit against the producers because it aired an episode in which she is featured being arrested for the crime of  driving with a "suspended license."   Going agasint the grain, Ms. Best did not want her 15 secs. of fame, her privacy that was another matter.

According to the Chicago Tribune, this is the second lawsuit this year against this outfit.  Another woman sued following an episode in which the producers filmed her in her pajama bottoms which according to reports, kept falling down.  How about that folks, modesty.  It still exists.  People in America who are genuinely not interested in being on teevee--it's like finding a rose in the snow.  How refreshing--I'm doubtful about the merits of Ms. Best's lawsuit, but I do wish her all the luck in the world.

Source:  http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/12/female-forces-lawsuit-naperville-biography-channel.html