Adelson Suit Against Jewish Democratic Group Is Reheard
Sheldon Adelson Image by Courtesy of This World
WASHINGTON – Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s bid to reinstate a defamation lawsuit against the National Jewish Democratic Council and two of its formal principals had a hearing in Nevada Supreme Court.
The hearing Monday was the third legal venue for the case since Adelson first sued the NJDC in 2012.
A federal appeals court directed the Nevada Supreme Court to consider whether Adelson may continue with his case under state law. Adelson after a federal judge dismissed the suit in 2013.
According to reports in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is owned by Adelson’s family, and The Associated Press, the hearing Monday focused on whether a hyperlink in an online NJDC news release constituted adequate attribution to a source, which would protect the NJDC and its former chairman, Marc Stanley, and president, David Harris, from charges they were peddling allegedly defamatory claims.
The hearing also addressed defense claims that the suit did not comply with Nevada’s laws against “strategic lawsuits against public participation” — those aimed at silencing critics as opposed to obtaining redress.
The federal judge who dismissed the case likened the link — it was in a 2012 petition by the NJDC calling on then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to refuse funding from Adelson — to a footnote, saying it constituted a “fair report.”
The link in the petition was to an AP account of a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by a fired casino employee against Adelson, a major funder of Republican candidates. The ex-employee alleged that Adelson allowed prostitutes to ply their trade in his casinos in Macau, China. Adelson has adamantly denied the claim.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
