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:
“There are some cases ... in which the sense of injury breeds—not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but—a hatred of all injury.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Fortunately for those who pay their court through such foibles, a fond mother, though, in pursuit of praise for her children, the most rapacious of human beings, is likewise the most credulous; her demands are exorbitant; but she will swallow any thing.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)