Vicini - The Price of Sugar

The Vicini Family was depicted in The Price of Sugar, a 2007 documentary by Bill Haney about exploitation of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic involved with production of sugar. The documentary shows the poor working conditions in the sugar cane plantations, and describes the actions taken by the Vicini family to stifle efforts to change the situation.

Subjects of the film, Felipe and Juan Vicini Lluberes, filed a defamation suit on August 31, 2007 against Uncommon Productions and producer Bill Haney, alleging 53 factual inaccuracies. According to Read McCaffrey, a partner in the law firm Patton Boggs representing the Vicinis, 'The misrepresentation are very egregious and as deceptive as I have seen in a very long time.'" However, according to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, the Vicini family "later winnowed the number of allegedly defamatory statements down to seven". The Appeals Court upheld a judgment from a lower court that the Vicini brothers were "public figures under the circumstances". The brothers thus must prove that the filmmakers made false depictions and knew about it. If they had been private figures, as the plaintiffs had unsuccessfully tried to prove, the filmmakers could have been liable for publishing information without verifying its truth. The appeals court sent the case back to the lower court to decide if the filmmakers have to hand over a report that they prepared to obtain insurance coverage for the film. After that, the lower court can determine whether information shown in the film was false and, if it was the case, if the filmmakers knew about it.