Gerald Posner Hires Mark Lane To Write Odd Demand Letter.

As the New Times reports, Gerald Posner has hired Rush to Judgment author Mark Lane to write a slightly oddball letter regarding allegations of plagiarism that have been lodged against the famous author.

Aside from the gimmicky (self-promoting?) JFK connection, here's the key graf on the possible legal claims:

"Most egregious was the email letter dated May 5, 2010, from Tim Elfrink, your staff writer for Miami New Times to Mr. Posner's publisher, Random House, making exaggerated charges of plagiarism and seeking to know what the publisher was going to do about it. That letter and other actions constitute tortious interference with a business relationship, tortious interference with a contractual relationship, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress. A leading relevant case, Gerber v Keyes, was decided by a Florida appellate court and New York State ruled in a similar fashion in Wegman v Dairylea Cooperative, Inc."

"Mr. Posner is prepared to file a complaint and seek immediate discovery as to the basis and support for the campaign to destroy his opportunity to work in his profession," Lane's letter said.

Ok, no libel or slander claims, just a tough tortious interference allegation that will be very hard to prove (putting aside the question of damages).

Ironically, Posner will have to establish something close to bad intent for those claims to stick, even as his principle defense against charges of plagiarism has been the lack of that very intent.

Some media wags have focused (mockingly) on the final graf by the authors:

"I do have one further suggestion. Since the issue of the search for the truth may be of interest to you and since, as you must know, a committee of the United States Senate years ago and then again more recently, concluded that the CIA, the FBI and other intelligence agencies have assets pretending to be journalists embedded in the major news media, that might be a subject that could attract your attention.

Come on, folks, let's not exaggerate -- Judith Miller did not technically work for the CIA.

Did she?

(BTW, our own Bill Cooke took that rockin' photo!)

"I have been advised to retain the services of a defamation attorney in this matter...."

Can anything good ever come out of a sentence that begins that way?

It gets better:

"If today’s news story in the Miami New Times is accurate," said Rekers in an e-mail to me, "I have been advised to retain the services of a defamation attorney in this matter, because the fact is that I am not gay and never have been."

Chuck, call me.

I consider myself a pretty good attorney, but even a bad one can go for hours with stuff like this:

Here are the four questions that I sent my travel assistant at his request two days ago, together with the answers we agreed on in our phone conversation this afternoon:

1. Did Dr. Rekers in fact hire you to lift my luggage when necessary as a travel assistant during the trip, because I cannot do so myself since I had surgery?
Together we agreed that I in fact hired him to lift luggage when necessary as a travel assistant during the trip, because I cannot do so himself since having surgery. We agreed that this is what my travel assistant agreed to do for pay prior to taking the trip.

2. Did you in fact lift my luggage during the trip each time it was necessary, or did Dr Rekers lift his own luggage during the trip?
We agreed that my travel assistant did in fact lift my luggage each time it was necessary, that I did not lift my luggage, and my travel assistant did all the lifting.

3. Did Dr. Rekers hire you as a prostitute for the trip?
We agreed that I hired him as a companion and to help with luggage, and that I did not hire him as a prostitute for any sexual purpose.

4. Did Dr. Rekers spend time explaining how the Christian faith is based in love to you during the trip?
We agreed that I explained the Christian faith to my travel assistant in conversations on several days during the trip.

Remember what I said about litigation sometimes having unintended consequences?

Totally unrelated, I recently re-read The Ballad of Reading Gaol -- great poem, tragic really.