Posted on 08/15/2007 4:55:39 AM PDT by Puppage
NEW YORK -- On the same day Don Imus settled a lawsuit with CBS Radio after being fired for making sexist and racist comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team, his legal troubles with one of the players began.
Kia Vaughn filed a slander and defamation of character lawsuit Tuesday in state Supreme Court in the Bronx the same day Imus settled with CBS Radio in a deal that pre-empts his threatened $120 million breach-of-contract lawsuit against CBS.
Vaughn's lawsuit, believed to be the first by a player in the case, says Imus and his former co-host Bernard McGuirk along with CBS Corp., CBS Radio, MSNBC and other media outlets that broadcast his show are legally responsible for damage done to her character and reputation. There is no dollar amount listed in the suit.
Vaughn's attorney, Richard Ancowitz, said, "The full effect of the damage remains to be seen."
"This is about Kia Vaughn's good name," Ancowitz said. "She would do anything to return to her life as a student and respected basketball player -- a more simple life before Imus opened his mouth."
Imus referred to the basketball players as "nappy-headed hos" on his nationally syndicated radio program April 4 and became the target of heated protests led by the Rev. Al Sharpton. He was fired shortly after. But he overcame a major hurdle in his widely expected comeback with the settlement Tuesday. It's possible he will return to the air.
The Vaughn suit claims that the comments were made in the context of a news or sports report and therefore Imus had certain standards to abide by but ignored them. The suit reprints the script from the "Imus in the Morning" show on which the comments were made.
"The ... false, defamatory, sexually denigrating and slanderous statements and comments against the women athletes of said basketball team were heard, believed and understood by millions of listeners ... as factual pronouncements concerning the character, chastity and reputation of the plaintiff," the lawsuit says.
Vaughn was humiliated, embarrassed and publicly mocked for the comments, the suit claims.
After the comments were made, she said at a press conference: "Unless they've given 'ho' a whole new definition, that's not what I am."
A telephone message left for Imus' attorney was not immediately returned Tuesday. There was no phone listing for McGuirk in the New York area. A spokeswoman for CBS Radio declined to comment, and CBS network spokesman Dana McClintock did not immediately return a message. MSNBC said it hadn't seen the lawsuit.
Rutgers women's basketball program spokeswoman Stacey Brann said the university had no comment on the lawsuit. She said she didn't know if other players had filed lawsuits.
Vaughn, a junior from the Bronx who was a center on the team, had spoken out about Imus on Oprah Winfrey's talk show in April. She said the comments overshadowed her team's amazing season -- one the coach has called the most rewarding of her career.
"Our moment was stolen from us," Vaughn said. "Instead of us coming here to enjoy what we accomplished and how far we came, we had to sit back and look at media asking questions about what he said."
A few weeks ago I was riding on a bus in Seattle, and two young black men kept referring to each other as niggers. After a while, I began to think that maybe they were doing it as kind of a power trip, as if to say, “Hey, whitey, we can say it and you can’t, what do you think of that?”
Hysterical...
Clearly most people did not.
You’re claiming that most people thought - on the basis of Imus’s comments - that these girls are actually prostitutes? I think that’s ridiculous.
That's a good point
Possibly. Whether or not she is a public figure will be the subject of extensive litigation in this case. But the above statememt is conclusory and not quite an accurate statement of the law.
The Supreme Court recognizes a class called an "involuntary public figure". So, whether she availed herslef of the spotlight will not necessarily be an issue in this case. An involuntary public figure is defined as someone who has become a public figure through no purposeful action of their own . The argument that Vaughn is an involuntary public figure rests on the fact that her game was on ESPN and people outside of Imus were discussing it the next day.
Furthermore, satire is protected under the First Amendment and Imus can claim is comments were so general and so absurd that no rightful person could infer he was speaking the truth when he called them "nappy headed ho's".
Then there is the issue of damages. If Imus committed slander per se (and I don't know what constitutes slander per se in NY, but something such as stating someone is a drug addict or that nature usually qualifies) then a damages can be awarded even if not proven. It is assumed the statement was injurious to her reputation.
However, if being a nappy headed ho is not slander per se, Vaughn would have to rpove specific damages.
What also has not been discussed is that comments were not This would seriously negate her ability to show specific damages.
No. I am saying that most people would interpret his statement as an assertion that they were of loose morality. The fact that Imus had no credibility is a different matter entirely.
And that's all it was. The majority of the people squawking probably didn't even hear or see the show that morning. It started with the Spike Lee reference & went from there. Then Sharpton inserted himself & it spiraled into breathtaking absurdity.
Typing error.
The comments were not specifically addressed to Vaughn. This would seriously negate her ability to show specific damages.
“Most” no. Loudest yes.
I never even heard of her until this article.
Were I to be the one defending this suit, I would point out that by filing the suit, the girls proved their “Whore” status, thus making Imus’s remarks retroactively truthful.
I hear you. And the things that have been said about redheads. We should sue! ;-)
“calling them “ho’s” is per se defamatory at common law (and still in many states), since it impinges upon her reputation for chastity.”
I hope she is ready for discovery.
Victimology. Isn’t that the newest major (in the Psychology department) available at Rutgers?
The other issue is whether 'nappy headed ho' which Imus borrowed from a Spike Lee movie and has been co-opted by rap culture actually asserts that the women are in fact unchaste.
Or is it possible that the phrase is completely devoid of meaning?
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