Judith Regan Files $100 Million Suit Against HarperCollins, News Corp.

NEW YORK -- One-time book publishing powerhouse Judith Regan filed a $100 million defamation lawsuit against HarperCollins and News Corp. on Tuesday, saying her former employers tried to destroy her reputation and asked her to lie to federal investigators about Bernard Kerik, the recently indicted former police commissioner with whom she had an affair.

Ms. Regan, who worked for HarperCollins Publishers LLC, said the smear campaign stems from her past intimate relationship with Mr. Kerik, who was police commissioner under former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and from the political agenda of News Corp., the parent company of HarperCollins.

Ms. Regan, 54, says in court papers that News Corp.'s political agenda centers on Mr. Giuliani's presidential ambitions. It was Mr. Giuliani, a Republican, who appointed Mr. Kerik police commissioner and recommended him to President Bush for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Kerik had to withdraw his nomination after it was revealed he had not reported the wages he paid to a nanny.

Ms. Regan says "it is now widely accepted" that one of Mr. Giuliani's vulnerabilities is the 52-year-old Mr. Kerik. Because of Ms. Regan's affair with Mr. Kerik, court papers say, a senior News Corp. executive told her he believed she had information about Mr. Kerik that could hurt Mr. Giuliani's campaign and she should lie to federal investigators.

We do not ladle out justice according to the morals of the supplicant but upon the principle itself. We should hope that Regan is awarded the full $100m if she climbs the two steep mountains she alleges: proving actual malice (she must prove she did not say it, they know it, and alleged the lie for material gain anyway), and proving actual damages.

We should hope she prevails because the conservative principle she invokes is resistance to playing the bigotry card. False allegations of anti-semitism are nearly as damning as charges of racism, especially in New York and especially in the publishing world.

More, the racism/bigotry card has been played by the left all too often, in fact, it is in my estimation the main justification for an otherwise played out philosophy. Racism/bigotry hypocrisy is the last trump of leftist scoundrels.

We are in a situation in which Jesse Jackson can extort millions from corporations for racial insensitivity. If we allow these corporations the race/bigotry card without consequences, they will take the safe course and promulgate explicit policies and implicit cultural pressure which will make speech for conservatives immeasurably more risky. Ask Imus(not a conservative) Lott and Limbaugh.

From our tagline, one could infer you are a Jew. If so, it seems to me that you might have an interest in saving the opprobrium of anti-semitism from trivialization.

Further, a loss by Regan would deflate Jesse Jackson since it is Regan that is playing the race/religion card for profit.

Huh? Judith Regan avers that she was libeled. The libel is that she allegedly made anti-Semitic remarks:

"They fired Judith without cause on a bogus, trumped-up claim that she had used an anti-Semitic remark with one of her lawyers. She didn't, and we found a witness who backs Judith."

Mr. Fields said the lawsuit is also about "libel," because the allegations that Ms. Regan made anti-Semitic remarks "is tremendously destructive for her."

To play the race/religion card is to accuse someone else of anti-Semitism or racism not to be yourself accused of these sins and respond at law . This is precisely the opposite what Jesse Jackson does when he extorts money from corporations. He alleges them to have committed acts of racial insensitivity and requires them to pay his foundation money and submit to his agitprop reeducation seminars.

Jesse Jackson cannot but be deflated at the prospect of arming those he torments with real legal weapons to counter his antics. You must turn the world upside down indeed to claim that it is I who has this "wholly backwards."

You raise First Amendment grounds for opposing Judith Regan in this lawsuit. To support this you cite the situation in Great Britain, a country without a written constitution, and no First Amendment, and, of course, no New York Times vs. Sullivan. and even if Great Britain were possessed of these things, the factual circumstance you contrive is again, "wholly backwards." Muslims in Great Britain who bring such libel suits allege acts of anti-Semitism (they are after all many of them Semites as well as Muslims of other ethnicities) and seek to restrain speech which allegedly is anti-Semitic. Judith Regan's lawsuit would support speech which is allegedly anti-Semitic. Judith Regan would force compensation from those who maliciously play that anti-Semitic/racism card. Jesse Jackson, manipulating civil rights statutes, intimidates people from exercising their free speech rights concerning race. Who has it "wholly backwards?"

You say,On the law you are wrong too. Since the NY Times v Sullivan constructive malice is sufficient.. I was able to find the opinion by Google so let's see what the Supreme Court actually held the New York Times vs Sullivan:

The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with "actual malice" - that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.

NEW YORK TIMES CO. v. SULLIVAN, 376 U.S. 254 (1964)

Page 376 U.S. 254, 280

I do not know what is happened since this opinion, it is difficult for me to follow these things from here in Germany and I have not done so for 20 years, but I do have some recollection that constructive malice has not been introduced to modify the requirement of actual malice in establishing the tort, but only in establishing punitive damages. Although the article does not explicitly say it, it is a reasonable to suppose that some portion of the claimed $100 million in damages would come from punitive damages. Hence my observation that a collateral motive for the liable, such as pecuniary advantage, would need to be shown to establish malice. Some sort of malice, however defined, must be proven for her to prevail. The free speech rights of the defendants prevail unless the speech is "malicious", however defined.

Whatever the standard of proof, it is clear that Judith Regan has a very high hill to climb indeed if she is to prevail which is only another way of saying that the free speech prerogatives of the alleged libelers would be more than adequately protected. The effect of The New York Times versus Sullivan, after all, was to strengthen not to weaken the constitutional rights of free speech. There never was a First Amendment right to liable, per se.

So we come full circle to my original observation: Reagan must prove that the allegation was false, known to be false, made with some degree or character of malice. Under these strengthened guarantees of free speech, concern for the free speech rights of mankind in similar circumstances is misplaced.

Which brings us full circle back to your original observation which was not a free speech position but a moral position having nothing to do whatsoever with the preservation of our free speech rights:

Being the second mistress to a man whose wife was pregnant, consumating their affair in a post 9/11 apartment designated for emergency workers wasn’t enough to damage the rep of a woman who published a murderer’s memoirs?

If she wins they should give her a penny.

Judith Regan's rights to civil justice do not depend on the morality she maintains in her boudoir. She's not alleging that their reputation as a vestal virgin has been besmirched, she is alleging that she has falsely been accused of being an anti-Semite. She claims that affects her career in the publishing world, surely one cannot dispute that false allegations of anti-Semitism could be career killers in this culture. One of the reasons I maintain my avatar and nom-de-plume, as is explained in my about page, is to do my bit to make the world safe against liberals constricting our free speech by playing the race card.

The best thing for the conservative cause, for the protection of real free speech, would be for Judith Regan to be awarded $100 million and have that award affirmed by the United States Supreme Court.

I disagree as do many Conservative and Libertarian lawyers who oppose libel laws as inhibitions on free speech, and believe in greatly restricted use or elimination of libel torts.

Particularly here where Regan’s job was on the line BEFORE she made/did not make the remark, her suit stinks of using Jesse Jackson like tactics to extort money.

Here is the result of libel laws. Do you really want libel claims used to dictate who an employer can or can’t fire? since employment at will is the norm in the US, this represents an attempt to undermine that freedom too.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1883111/posts

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4000

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/03/alms-for-jihad-update/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4061165.stm

http://www.rcfp.org/news/2004/1207global.html

http://kleinverzet.blogspot.com/2006/10/france2-wins-al-durah-libel-case.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/11/news/edbroyde.php

For the record, my religion is irrelevant here. I believe in very few restrictions on free speech. I oppose the European laws against hate speech which are used aginst Holocaust deniers, hate crime legislation here, and any campus attempts to dictate what speech is okay.

I disagree as do many Conservative and Libertarian lawyers who oppose libel laws as inhibitions on free speech, and believe in greatly restricted use or elimination of libel torts.

In response one can only observe that New York Times v Sullivan cannot be characterized as anything other than a holding which "greatly restricted (the) you use... of libel torts." I have quoted the language that severely restricts the right of public figures to bring such actions and sets out the very difficult burden of proof which must be carried with clear and convincing evidence. Any more restriction and one could scarcely see how the tort of libel could survive at all.

I suspect it is the elimination of this tort which is your actual goal rather than its restriction. You describe it as an inhibition on free speech and I concede that of course it is. Any restriction on free speech carries the burden of persuasion in justifying its existence. We have always admitted this tort because of the terrible harm a published liable can do to an individual, especially one who is relatively defenseless against someone who buys ink by the barrel.

But there is a far more important role for libel which justifies its existence. We live in an age of political correctness which is itself a ruthlessly effective "inhibition of free speech" which you say above that you deplore. You even cite an article which describes the baleful effects of free speech in academia. Judith Regan alleges that it occurred in her employment. We both know that it is a terrible blight on our democracy. You have cited other articles which describe its tremendous power in Europe. Today, it is political correctness which is generating the most chilling effects on free speech. The power of political correctness is growing and the power of the tort of libel is shrinking. The danger to our Republic is not from this tort but from political correctness.

You want to eliminate the tort of libel but it is, after all, one of the last remaining bulwarks against the chilling effects of political correctness. I have described how it works in my previous post. You ask us to unilaterally disarm and leave the field open to political correctness. Pass a law and enforce it prohibiting political correctness, and I will be the first to surrender my common-law rights not to be slandered.

Meanwhile, the power of the libel laws in America to set right the wrongs done to free speech in the name of political correctness more than justifies its very restricted ability to inhibit free speech.all of those citations in your last post which describe the politically correct and chilling effect of libel laws in Europe have absolutely no application in American jurisprudence (apart from the matter of enforcing foreign judgments which is an entirely separate concept.)

For the record, my religion is irrelevant here. I believe in very few restrictions on free speech.

You say that your religion has nothing to do with this, but can you say that you are not motivated by a desire as a supporter of Israel to identify to the world, without fear of libel actions being brought against you, who you think is an Islamic terrorist or supporter of terror? Is it not reasonable to conclude this from the very articles about Islamic terrorist organizations in Europe which you cite in your previous post?

Particularly here where Regan’s job was on the line BEFORE she made/did not make the remark, her suit stinks of using Jesse Jackson like tactics to extort money.

I confess I am a loss to know how to respond to this apart from my remarks in my previous post. It seems to me that you have the wrong end of the telescope to your eye, it is not Judith Reagan who is using Jesse Jackson like tactics but those who claimed she is an anti-Semite.

Do you really want libel claims used to dictate who an employer can or can’t fire? since employment at will is the norm in the US, this represents an attempt to undermine that freedom too.

Certainly not. Fortunately there is nothing in this case which suggests that if she prevails that would be the effect. If she proves that she was fired for being an anti-Semite because she uttered certain words -but she never uttered those words- I think she has an action not only for libel, but for wrongful breach. And I hope she wins both of them because they lied about her and they blackguarded her, and they blackguarded her as a cover to terminate her-a classic case of malice.

I say again, in today's world of political correctness where the truth means nothing and speech is intimidated everywhere, the best hope for First Amendment supporters of free speech is that Judith Regan, if she proves her case to be true with clear and convincing evidence, might be awarded every penny of her hundred million dollar claim.

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