The judge presiding over state Supreme Court Justice Seamus P. McCaffery’s defamation lawsuit against The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and several of their reporters and editors has denied all of the defendants’ preliminary objections.
In a one-page order issued a day after he heard oral arguments in the case, Senior Judge John M. Cleland dismissed Wednesday the defendants’ objections, denied the paper’s request to strike a portion of the amended complaint and ordered the defendants to respond to the complaint within 20 days. Cleland, who is a McKean County judge specially appointed to hear the case given McCaffery’s ties to the First Judicial District where the suit was filed, also set discovery deadlines for Nov. 30.
