Shirley Sherrod to sue Andrew Breitbart

[pickel]

Shirley Sherrod to sue Andrew Breitbart after conservative blogger sparked race flap over speech


Sherrod said Andrew Breitbart knew what he was doing when he posted a doctored video that made it appear she was boasting about mistreating a white farmer.

"I knew it was racism, and no one had to tell me that," she said. "Right will win the end."

[SiliconJon]

Sounds like a good case of libel or slander to me. Have at him, Shirley. Such reckless deception in the pursuit of character assassination is still guarded fairly well by the courts these days, unlike our Bill of Rights.

[Chuckiechan]

Well, if Bush couldn't sue CBS, I doubt she and sue Brietbart.

Of course now, our justice department has different laws for different races.

[voogru]

The video wasn't edited, it was just an exerpt and out of context. This happens all of the time against republicans, she doesn't have a case IMO.

[MTAtech]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckiechan

Well, if Bush couldn't sue CBS, I doubt she and sue Brietbart.

Of course now, our justice department has different laws for different races.

If you want to misrepresent the facts, that's up to you. The simple answer is that Bush is a public figure and according to the Supreme Court in, New York Times v Sullivan, (1964) a public figure must prove damages and also prove "actual malice" -- that CBS knew the statement to be false and did so with reckless disregard of the truth. If I recall the Bush situation, CBS believed their report to be true and thus was immunized by the First Amendment.

Likewise, Sherrod would not be able to sue Fox News, as Fox believed the story, regardless of how shoddy their fact-checking was.

Some cases are difficult to decide. This is not one of those cases.

In the future Sherrod v Brietbart case, Sherrod is not a public figure and need not climb the public figure legal hurdle. It can also be argued that Brietbart is not a journalist but a partisan hit-man and therefore not protected at all by the First Amendment.

I think it can easily be proven that Brietbart had access to the entire video but chose to show the selected segment in order to damage President Obama by proxy and discrediting Sherrod was the means to do so.

Sherrod can show damages. She lost a federal job and was subjected to national public humiliation and disgrace. Liability is Brietbart's since he caused those damages by propagating a lie.

[osprey4]

Her $1.3M settlement from her last lawsuit and fifteen minutes of fame must be running out.

She cannot show damages because a job was immediately offered and she turned it down. All she can show is that she's just another race-baiting liberal trying to milk the system for more money.