UPDATES Twitter Trial of Love and Slander Settles And Li-Lo Steal-O’s Fate Still Unknown
on March 10, 2011 at 8:13 PMTwo updates.
Courtney Love
First, When future generations of law students read media cases, they’ll have to do without an opinion on the tweets of Courtney Love. She settled her twitter suit for a mere $430,000. In January, I blogged about how the unfortunate (and down right mean) tweets of Courtney Love landed her in deep with the Boudoir Queen. Full refresher here.
Though it settled, the case attracted enough hullabaloo for First Amendment heavy weight Douglas Mirell and others to worry. Mirell cautioned, ”People are getting in trouble for Twitter postings on an almost daily basis . . . the laws controlling what is and isn’t libelous are the same regardless of the medium in which the statements appear.”
Superstar Bryan Freedman has a lesson for us all. ”The fact is that this case shows that the forum upon which you communicate makes no difference in terms of potential legal exposure,” Freedman said. “Disparaging someone on Twitter does not excuse one from liability.” Good to know.
Update two. Li-Lo Steal-O.
Elizabeth Taylor
Lindsay Lohan is due back in court today, March 10th, to announce whether or not she will accept a plea offer before Judge Keith Schwartz. The full disaster of this case is detailed here. The parties met with the Judge today, who gave Lohan one more day to accept the plea or the trial will start.
The media is mixed with what her decision will be. The Hollywood Reporter stated that she will not accept the plea, as it guarantees jail time. However, other sources report that the delay in accepting the plea indicates she’s mulling and seriously considering the deal.
Details of the plea are scant, other than the fact that it definitely means jail time. TMZ seems to think six months.
Whatever happens to Li-Lo, the necklace’s legacy is building. The necklace already has its own website www.necklacevideo.com and store owners have been interviewed on the possibility of donating the proceeds of auctioning the necklace to charity.
My favorite is the tagline, “The video speaks for itself.” Indeed, Lohan’s defense team is also hoping the video can speak for itself. The store has begun to sell videos of the incident, which Lohan’s team plans to argue gave the store a motive to accuse her of theft. If she doesn’t take the plea, we’ll find out just how much weight that argument holds.