Posts Tagged ‘Washington D.C.’

Why the Jessica Cutler case matters

For some reason, we haven’t yet covered the Washingtonienne libel suit, where Little Rock law professor Robert Steinbuch revealed he was “R.S.” by filing suit against the infamous blogger, causing Judge Paul Friedman to comment, “I don’t know why this guy thought it was smart to file a lawsuit and lay out all of his private intimate details in an appendix to the complaint.”

Now Wonkette reports that Cutler’s third set of attorneys in the litigation Robert Steinbuch has filed against her, and has not yet retained new attorneys. Why might you care? Because Steinbuch, who waited until May 16, 2005 to complain about a May 4, 2004 blog post, is planning on arguing that every new blog post restarts the statute of limitations for a plaintiff wishing to complain about a blog. (T.R. Goldman, “A Man Scorned”, Legal Times, May 22). If Cutler defends against this argument pro se, Judge Friedman could be induced into an erroneous ruling that makes life difficult for bloggers everywhere. And there’s no reason that Steinbuch’s logic wouldn’t equally apply to computer databases like LEXIS that “republish” mainstream media articles upon request. One hopes Friedman will see through the Steinbuch argument.

On the air

I was interviewed this afternoon for New York’s WCBS Channel 2 evening news on the Supreme Court vacancy, then joined host Chris Core of Washington, D.C.’s WMAL this evening for a discussion after it had become clear that the President’s Supreme Court pick would be Judge John Roberts. Tomorrow, I’ll be on KPCC, public radio in Southern California.