Law School Loses Defamation Claim Against Plaintiffs Lawyers

Thomas M. Cooley Law School has lost its claims of defamation, tortious interference with business relations, breach of contract and false light at the summary judgment stage against plaintiffs lawyers who posted on-line to solicit law-school clients and suggested in their proposed complaint that the law school used "'Enron-style'" accounting techniques, according to the opinion.

U.S. District Judge Robet J. Jonker of the Western District of Michigan said in his opinion that the law school is a limited purpose public figure involved in a public controversy about the value of a legal education for students. Even President Obama has weighed in on the future of legal education, the judge said in his opinion. A reasonable jury could not find by clear and convincing evidence that the defendants acted with actual malice, or reckless disregard for the truth of their statements, the judge said.

According to the opinion, the judge also found that many of the statements are protected exaggeration: "At least two statements fall within the protected category of exaggeration or hyperbole. These statements include the speculation that 'most likely schools like Thomas Cooley will continue to defraud unwitting
students unless held civilly accountable' and that Cooley 'blatantly misrepresents and manipulates its employment statistics ... employing the type of ‘Enron-style’ accounting techniques that would leave
most for-profit companies facing the long barrel of a government indictment and the prospect of paying a
substantial criminal fine,'" the judge said. "Further, the statement that 'Cooley grossly inflates its graduates’
reported mean salaries' may not merely be protected hyperbole, but actually substantially true."

Read the full opinion here: http://www.abajournal.com/files/Opinion_Granting_SJ_Motion.pdf

One blog notes "plaintiffs losing defamation law suits tend to look a lot worse coming out of the suit than they did going in": http://kevin.lexblog.com/2013/09/30/defamation-suits-versus-social-media...