Law Profs v. West, Part II

Last week, I blogged about two law professors suing West for defamation. I am including that posting below. The jury has reached a  decision. They have awarded the profs $5 million. A big holiday  present!

Here's last week's blog:

In  federal district court in Philadelphia, the jury trial  has begun. Here is  the thrust of the  defamation action, as reported by the Legal Intelligencer:

Professors David Rudovsky of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Leonard Sosnov of Widener School of Law claim that West harmed their reputations when it falsely identified them as the authors of a poorly researched treatise update.

The pair say they had worked on updates to the treatise for years, but refused when West wanted to cut their pay. West's response, they claim, was to publish a "sham" update that still carried the professors' names but included almost no case updates.

 Here is the plaintiffs’ complaint, which tells the story in some detail. It illustrates the proposition that sometimes a complaint is an important advocacy document and is more persuasive if it offers more than a short plain statement of the claim.

(ljs)