Univ. of Miami School of Law professor Donald Marvin Jones
Professor withdraws lawsuit against 'Above the Law'
November 5, 2009
A law school professor has withdrawn a lawsuit accusing the legal blog Above the Law of publishing a "viciously racist series of rants" after reporting the professor's arrest for suspicion of soliciting prostitution.
University of Miami School of Law professor Donald Marvin Jones dropped his lawsuit on Wednesday, nine days after he filed it pro se in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Above the Law Managing Editor David Lat declined comment on Thursday, but in a blog post on Wednesday wrote that there had been no settlement and that the posts Jones complained about will remain on the site. He offered to let Jones make his case on Above the Law, but there was no word from Jones on that front as of Thursday.
"I'm relieved that Mr. Jones came to his senses," the site quoted Above the Law attorney Marc Randazza as saying. "We were prepared to file a motion to dismiss and a motion for sanctions, and we were confident that both would have been successful. I am consistently unimpressed by academics and anti-speech parties who think that the courts are there for the redress of foolishness, not the legitimate redress of valid legal grievances."
Jones had accused the site of portraying him in a false light, invading his privacy and infringing the university's copyright on his faculty photo. The suit named as defendants Lat, publisher David Minkin and parent company Dead Horse Media Inc., now called Breaking Media LLC. It sought $44 million in damages and removal of the content from the Web site.
The claims stemmed from a series of posts that the blog ran in October 2007 about a run-in Jones had with Miami police in August that year. Jones — a prominent African-American civil rights activist in Miami — was arrested after he allegedly asked an undercover officer for sex. He insisted he was merely asking for directions. The charges were later dropped and Jones' arrest record was expunged, but not before Above the Law posted the police incident report and a variety of commentary, including a reader-submitted photo collage depicting Jones conversing with prostitutes. Jones alleged that the collage and much of the commentary was racist and hurt his career.
After news of the lawsuit broke this week, legal experts posted Internet commentary casting doubts on the action's merits. For example, University of California at Los Angeles School of Law professor Eugene Volokh called the lawsuit "downright frivolous" on his widely read legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy.
Karen Sloan can be contacted at ksloan@alm.com.
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