{"id":102353,"date":"2022-09-27T01:55:45","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T01:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=102353"},"modified":"2022-09-27T01:55:48","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T01:55:48","slug":"la-state-judge-stretches-credulity-in-ruling-teacher-is-public-figure-and-thus-not-eligible-to-file-lawsuit-for-defamation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=102353","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;[LA] State judge stretches credulity in ruling teacher is public figure and thus not eligible to file lawsuit for\u00a0defamation&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/louisianavoice.com\/2022\/09\/23\/state-judge-stretches-credulity-in-ruling-teacher-is-public-figure-and-thus-not-eligible-to-file-lawsuit-for-defamation\/\" target=\"_blank\">LA Voice<\/a>: &#8220;A 21<sup>st<\/sup>\u00a0Judicial District Judge has\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/state-watch\/3656628-judge-dismisses-librarians-defamation-lawsuit-following-conservative-attacks-over-lgbtq-books\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DISMISSED<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0the defamatory lawsuit of a Livingston Parish middle school librarian\u2019s defamation lawsuit against two men she says have attacked her in an effort to rally opposition to the inclusion of what they term \u201cinappropriate\u201d books in the Livingston Parish Library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In what has to be considered a major stretch of the definition, Judge Erika Sledge determined that librarian Amanda Jones was a \u201cpublic figure,\u201d and thus fair game under the landmark&nbsp;<em>Sullivan v. New York Times<\/em>&nbsp;Supreme Court decision which made it more difficult for public figures to pursue libel claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m not an attorney, but I always felt that the term \u201cpublic figure\u201d as defined in the Supreme Court\u2019s decision was intended for elected officials and figures of authority, not civil servants. I guess this Supreme Court one day could conceivably determine journalists and garbage collectors (some say those occupations are interchangeable) to be \u201cpublic figures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At any rate, when St. Martin Parish resident Michael Lunsford, president of something called Citizens for a New Louisiana, stuck his nose into the Livingston Parish Library system, he offered encouragement for Livingston Parish resident Ryan Thames to post derogatory messages on Facebook that painted Jones as somehow encouraging pedophilia by speaking out in a public hearing against censorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Posts by Thames that accused Jones of advocating the teaching of anal sex to 11-year-olds in turn prompted other Facebook participants to join in a barrage of insults and outright lies about and threats to Jones, comments that expanded on Thames\u2019s accusations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lunsford and Thames, of course (as might be expected), smugly plastered their victory all over their respective Facebook pages.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LA Voice: &#8220;A 21st\u00a0Judicial District Judge has\u00a0DISMISSED\u00a0the defamatory lawsuit of a Livingston Parish middle school librarian\u2019s defamation lawsuit against two men she says have attacked her in an effort to rally opposition to the inclusion of what they term \u201cinappropriate\u201d books in the Livingston Parish Library. In what has to be considered a major stretch&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102354,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102353\/revisions\/102354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}