Partner James Janowitz Speaks to The Note About Palin Defamation Case
Pryor Cashman Senior Partner James Janowitz was recently interviewed by the ABC News blog, The Note for its September 28, 2011 article “Sarah Palin May Have a Hard Time Proving Defamation.”
According to The Note, Sarah Palin’s attorney sent a letter to Crown Publishing, a division of Random House, informing them that Palin may sue the publishing house and author of “The Rogue,” Joe McGinniss, “for knowingly publishing false statements” in the recently released book.
When questioned about the merits of the case, Janowitz, who is currently representing internationally renowned singer Courtney Love-Cobain in a California lawsuit arising out of allegations of libel disseminated over the Internet, told the publication “the reporter or the author is not libelous merely for repeating or reporting false things about the subject, and that’s really the key thing. It doesn’t matter that he’s wrong. It matters whether or not he knew what he was writing was false.” Furthermore, he stated “if he had contrary information or if he made it up and it was false and he had no source at all and he did it for the purpose of either hurting her or boosting the sales of his book when he knew what he was saying was probably false, then he’s in trouble. But that’s a very high bar.”
To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
