Summary Judgment Motion
CBS made a motion for a summary judgment, claiming immunity from libel for doing a commentary on a public figure under the precedent established in New York Times v. Sullivan. At the onset, the presiding judge ruled that under New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and the First Amendment, Westmoreland, as a public figure, must prove by "clear and convincing evidence" that CBS acted with actual malice in gathering the evidence and putting it together in the documentary. This is legally a heavy burden of proof and a much higher standard than a nonpublic figure would need to sue for defamation.
Read more about this topic: Westmoreland V. CBS
Famous quotes containing the words summary, judgment and/or motion:
“I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“I [Boswell] ... insisted that admiration was more pleasing than judgment, as love is more pleasing than friendship. The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love like being enlivened with champagne. JOHNSON. “No, Sir; admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne; judgment and friendship like being enlivened.””
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)