Skank Nile Disease.
Posted on 04/18/2002 9:39:14 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
"Skank" is no case for libel lawyer
Thu Apr 18, 4:57 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - It may not be OK to be a skank but legally it is OK to be called one.
A California state appeals court has ruled it is not libel to call someone a "skank" or even a "big skank" on the radio -- describing the word as "a derogatory slang term of recent vintage that has no generally recognised meaning."
The state's 1st Court of Appeals, ruling in a case stemming from the show "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire," found that participants in the program "voluntarily subjected themselves to inevitable scrutiny and potential ridicule by the public and the media."
A contestant, one of 50 women who competed to marry a multimillionaire on the Fox television program, sued two morning disc-jockeys at a San Francisco radio station after they called her a "local loser," a "chicken-butt" and "a skank" for declining their invitation to appear on their show.
The woman, Jennifer Seelig, was not amused and sued the disc jockeys, their producer and the radio station owner, Infinity Broadcasting, citing slander, invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress.
But the appeals court judges, in their ruling released on Tuesday, instructed the trial court to dismiss the case, saying the on-air discussion involved "a television show of significant interest to the public and the media" and thus was a protected form of free speech.
The appeals court also rejected the plaintiff's claim that she was libeled, saying there was no way to prove that the disc jockeys had knowingly perpetrated a falsehood by describing her as a "local loser", a "chicken butt" and a "big skank."
"The terms local loser and chicken butt are not actionable because they are too vague to be capable of being proven true or false," the court said.
It said the same argument applied to the phrase "big skank."
The plaintiff's lawyer, Christopher Dolan, had argued that the term "skank" was widely understood to be derogatory, pointing to definitions such as that in the American Heritage Dictionary, which defines the word as "One who is disgustingly foul or filthy and often considered sexually promiscuous. Used especially of a woman or girl."
BTW - What the hell do you expect from going on a show like that.
What do you think of this example:
Pam Anderson is a skank.
After her lastest outbreak with herpes or whatever, I think this applies well.
Perfect example........
Skank Nile Disease.
Great minds and all that! &;-)
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