The former headmaster of a private Christian school founded by novelist Nicholas Sparks can continue to sue the school, the author and the foundation Sparks created to support the school, a federal judge said. U.S. District Judge James Dever III ...

Tagged with: defamation

Based on her responsibilities as set forth in the Virginia Code, a school board’s Director of Budget & Finance was a “public official” who had to show actual malice to prove that a TV news station defamed her. She failed ...

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The North Carolina Supreme Court has vacated a December 2016 Court of Appeals decision which had said that an investment company had valid claims for libel and slander per se after a local business owner issued a press release calling ...

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Wynn v. Tyrrell County Board of Education (Lawyers Weekly No. 012-092-17, 9 pp.) (Valerie Zachary, J.) Appealed from Tyrell County Superior Court (Wayland Sermons Jr., J.) N.C. App. Unpub. Holding: The complaint alleges that “Defendants, individually, and through their agents ...

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Lippard v. Holleman (Lawyers Weekly No. 012-080-17, 16 pp.) (Robert Hunter Jr., J.) Appealed from Iredell County Superior Court (Martin McGee, J.) N.C. App. Unpub. Holding: In a defamation case arising from a pastor’s words from his pulpit, one superior ...

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A Buncombe County woman who posted false statements about another woman on Facebook has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a defamation suit. As part of the settlement agreement, Jacquelyn Hammond issued a public apology in which she admitted that ...

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Church v. Norelli (Lawyers Weekly No. 012-038-17, 18 pp.) (Valerie Zachary, J.) Appealed from Caldwell County Superior Court (W. Todd Pomeroy, J.) N.C. App. Unpub. Holding: In an article in the North Carolina State Bar Journal, the defendant-judge gave enough ...

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Mitchell v. Pruden (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-021-17, 14 pp.) (Douglas McCullough, J.) Appealed from New Hanover County Superior Court (Jay Hockenbury, J.) N.C. App. Holding: Plaintiffs make conclusory allegations that the statements the defendant-school superintendent published to others – statements ...

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Eli Global, LLC v. Heavner (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-390-16, 17 pp.) (Ann Marie Calabria, J.) Appealed from Durham County Superior Court (Orlando Hudson Jr., J.) N.C. App. Holding: A press release, which called plaintiffs “predators” who attempted a hostile takeover ...

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Bill Cosby’s admission that he obtained quaaludes to give young women he was pursuing for sex could bolster defamation claims lodged by his accusers, the women’s lawyers said after The Associated Press reported on newly released court ...

Tagged with: defamation Sexual Abuse