October 28, 2019 Baseball / Defamation / Litigation / MLB

MLB Umpire Joe West Sues Ex-Player Paul Lo Duca for Defamation Over Bribery Claims

Major League Baseball umpire Joe West has filed a lawsuit against ex-player Paul Lo Duca, alleging that Lo Duca defamed West by falsely accusing him of bribery.

In one of his podcasts this past April, Lo Duca claimed that a teammate told him that West engaged in bribery. That teammate, Billy Wagner, allegedly told Lo Duca at a 2006 or 2007 New York Mets v. Philadelphia Phillies game that he lent West his 1957 Chevrolet in exchange for opening up the strike zone for him. …

September 30, 2019 Defamation / Harassment / Litigation / NFL

New England Patriots Player Asks Judge to Throw Out ‘Trash Talk’ Lawsuit

New England Patriots safety Patrick Chung has asked a federal judge to dismiss a defamation lawsuit by a former Los Angeles Rams employee that involves the posting of a text message on social media.

As we reported earlier, former Rams ticket executive Matthew Hogan sued Chung and Matthew Weymouth, a friend of Chung’s who ran his social media pages. The lawsuit is over text messages that Chung posted to his social media. The post consisted of an exchange between Hogan and Weymouth where Hogan …

November 9, 2015 Celebrities

Bill Cosby to be Deposed in Defamation Lawsuit

Janice Dickinson, former supermodel and judge on “America’s Next Top Model,” told Entertainment Tonight (ET) in a November 2014 interview that Bill Cosby drugged and raped her in 1982. Cosby’s ex-attorney Marty Singer immediately fired back, calling Dickinson’s story “a fabricated lie” that is a “complete contradiction” from her earlier accounts of interactions with Cosby. The result of the back and forth is a defamation lawsuit brought by Dickinson against Cosby in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. The presiding judge— Judge Debre Katz Weintraub …

June 10, 2014 Defamation / TV

Former American Idol Contestant Loses Libel Lawsuit against MTV

Corey Clark, the former-American Idol participant who gained notoriety for alleging he had an affair with then-judge Paula Abdul, recently saw his $40 million defamation suit against MTV dismissed. The ex-contestant was originally disqualified and removed from the show after concealing the fact that he had been arrested for assaulting his sister.

Clark responded by filing the libel lawsuit back in July 2012 after an MTV reporter published various pieces concerning Clark’s disqualification, including statements characterizing the assault as a “hairy domestic dispute,” and asserting …