Cases Not in Court
In addition to case law, there are numerous notable examples of authors and publishers refusing to print work out of fear of libel suits. Several novels have been cancelled or altered after threats of libel suits.
UK Prime Ministor John Major sued several periodicals, including Simon Regan's Scallywag, and New Statesman, over stories about an alleged affair with Clare Latimer. Scallywag closed afterwards. It was later revealed that Major had a real affair with MP Edwina Currie, and Latimer later claimed Downing Street had used her as a decoy to confuse the press.
Read more about this topic: English Defamation Law
Famous quotes containing the words cases and/or court:
“In the beautiful, man sets himself up as the standard of perfection; in select cases he worships himself in it.... Man believes that the world itself is filled with beauty—he forgets that it is he who has created it. He alone has bestowed beauty upon the world—alas! only a very human, an all too human, beauty.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The city is recruited from the country. In the year 1805, it is said, every legitimate monarch in Europe was imbecile. The city would have died out, rotted, and exploded, long ago, but that it was reinforced from the fields. It is only country which came to town day before yesterday, that is city and court today.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)