Per the order of a federal judge, the libel lawsuit brought by a Philadelphia firefighter against the New York Daily News earlier this year has been dismissed, though court records indicate he has appealed that verdict.
Source: news.google.com
This was an interesting case that really could have gone either way, and well may be reversed on appeal.
The New York Daily News reported on a sex scandal at the fire department, and the article included two photographs. The first was a generic stock photo showing firefighters at the scene of a fire, but inexplicably the newspaper chose to use a photo of firefighter Francis Cheney II, taken during a formal 9/11 ceremony. The newspaper’s intent was simply to use Cheney as a representation of a firefighter, but a casual reader could easily draw the conclusion that he was one of the firefighters involved in the sex scandal.
I would have anticipated that the defamation claim he filed would fail, but he also filed a claim for false light invasion of privacy, and that claim certainly had some merit.
But the judge in Pennsylvania disagreed, and threw out all of Cheney’s claims. The judge found that the photo provided sufficient context such that a reader would know that no link between the photo of Cheney and the sex scandal was intended.
This is an important factor in any defamation (or false light) claim. The fact that a statement or photo can be interpreted in a defamatory sense is not enough. The statement must be given a reasonable interpretation.
The post Firefighter pictured in sex scandal article loses libel claims against Daily News, appeals | Pennsylvania Record appeared first on Internet Defamation Blog.