Legal News

The Iseman Endeth Her Lawsuit

By Ashby Jones

Vicki Iseman, in a 2004 photo at an awards dinner in Washington. Photo: AP

For the most part, litigation settlements are good things, we know. Judges’ dockets are spared, money is saved, and everyone goes home at least a little happy.

But hey, we’re the media, and we drawn to conflict and spectacle. That’s why we were a bit chagrined to read of the settlement reached between the New York Times and Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist who sued the Times over its account of her ties to John McCain. According to an article in the NYT, the suit was settled without payment, and the Times did not retract the article. Click here for the NYT’s account; here and here for previous LB coverage; here for a copy of Iseman’s complaint; and here for the original February 2008 article.

The article alleged McCain aides asked Iseman in 1999 to stop spending time with the Arizona senator after becoming convinced Iseman and McCain were having a romantic affair.

Both Iseman and McCain denied the existence of an affair, denials the Times included in its piece. But Iseman apparently felt she wasn’t given a fair shake and in December of last year, she filed a defamation suit against the Times and several of its reporters and editors.

And now it’s over. But for all those looking for more information, it’s your lucky day. The Times on Friday has run a statement from Iseman’s lawyers (which quotes Shakespeare and Justice Potter Stewart); a joint statement; and a response from the NYT’s managing editor, Bill Keller.

The sides seem to agree to disagree, largely over whether Iseman was a “public figure” for defamation-law purposes. Write her lawyers, W. Coleman Allen, Jr. of Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen in Richmond and Washington & Lee’s Rodney Smolla: the “judicial determination of whether she is entitled to the protections afforded a private citizen would have been the subject of a ferocious, pivotal battle, with Ms. Iseman insisting on her status as a private person . . . .”

Counters Keller: We “do not share the plaintiff attorneys’ views that their client is “not even a public figure.” A publicly registered lobbyist is hired to influence public officials on matters of public policy. That seems to us to be exactly the sort of figure journalists are supposed to watch with close attention, and who thus are required to meet a higher standard in proving defamation. . . . We are confident that if they had been tested in court, the plaintiff’s arguments would have failed on the merits.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 20, 2009 (boomark / email).