I suspect I would not take the position I took in the Judith Reagan case in which I supported her right to bring an action for libel in which he claims that she was falsely slandered as an anti-Semite.
Posted on 12/24/2007 1:30:52 PM PST by neverdem
New York's highest court has passed up an opportunity to protect American authors from the libel judgments of foreign courts. In a decision handed down yesterday, the Court of Appeals in Albany told a New York-based researcher that she could not use the courts here to challenge a British judgment ordering her to pay 30,000 British pounds — more than $60,000 — for defaming a Saudi billionaire.
The case was a test of how New York's courts will respond to concerns that the First Amendment rights of American authors are undermined by libel judgments imposed abroad, especially in Britain.
Libel law in Britain is far more plaintiff-friendly than libel law in America. This discrepancy has given rise to a practice that critics call "libel tourism." In recent years, American authors and journalists have found themselves sued by non-British nationals in British courts over articles and books published in America.
The researcher, Rachel Ehrenfeld, had asked a court in New York to declare the British judgment against her unenforceable under the First Amendment.
But the Court of Appeals said a New York court first needed jurisdiction over the Saudi financier who brought the case, Khalid bin Mahfouz, before it could take up Ms. Ehrenfeld's countersuit. The court found that Mr. Mahfouz had so few dealings involving New York that no local court had jurisdiction over a suit against him.
The decision does not preclude Ms. Ehrenfeld from challenging the judgment if Mr. Mahfouz goes to court in New York to try to collect. But Ms. Ehrenfeld's attorney, Daniel Kornstein, has said having...
--snip--
Last year, Britain's highest court, the House of Lords, made it significantly more difficult for journalists to be sued for libel. That decision came in a case against the Wall Street Journal Europe brought by another Saudi businessman.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Football player's cooling treatment is experimental, but also tried for stroke, brain injury
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list. I didn't remember his unusual treatment at first. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah & Happy New Year!
Good decision.
bump
One I recall was someone who squawked about some of British Telecom's policies.
What often happens was that sympathetic webmasters would then create endless mirror sites, long after the bullies had been satisfied and the original "Offender" had been beaten into submission and removed his "offending" content.
Amazing how parody can be done so well on the BBC, and how hard Little People can be stepped on for the same.
The House of Lords decision, mentioned in the article, has done nothing to halt the activity of libel tourists. The reason is that the judges assigned to the Libel Court — few in number — will not bow to the House of Lords decision. The worst offender is Judge Eady who may actually have been on the Arab payroll at one time and is the preferred jurist for libel tourists like the bin Mahfouz family.
I suspect I would not take the position I took in the Judith Reagan case in which I supported her right to bring an action for libel in which he claims that she was falsely slandered as an anti-Semite.
Which one, the House of Lords or the N.Y. Appeals Court?
NY court.
Why so?
The Constitution says that states must give full faith and credit to judgments of other states. It says nothing about judgments of other countries. We can’t be in the business of enforcing judgments from other countries generally. The rest of the world is pretty backward. We do have some treaties that touch on this, but they have exclusions when the judgment is contrary to fundamental policy in the US. Freedom of speech is in that category.
Now I'm confused. our supreme court defers to "world opinion" on the death penalty and abortion. Shouldn't foreign courts extend the same courtesy and defer to OUR laws?
We could make the Brits and Saudis so do but they’d whine about it.
Libel laws are different in Britain. The defendant has to prove that she did not libel the defendant. In this case telling inconvenient facts is libel because it damages PC orthodoxy. That is one reasone why she refused to debate the issue in the UK. The other is that the book was written in America by an American. The NY Court position now holds that if you write something that offends people in other countries, they can sue you there. You have no First Ammendment protections.
So, if I write something taht offents Castro, he should have the right to prosecute me?
Yes, Cuban police could come and take you back to Havana.
They don’t.
English courts are strange aren't they?
Thanks.
Galloway won against the Telegraph, and then it was shown he was not libelled.
UK libel laws, fund terror.
http://fconte.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
Thanks for the ping!
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