Seinfeld Case Emphasizes that Opinions Are Not Defamatory

I have previously blogged about the copyright infringement and defamation lawsuit against Jessica and Jerry Seinfeld filed by Missy Chase Lapine here and here.

From the start, I believed Lapine’s defamation claim against Jerry Seinfeld was stronger than her copyright infringement claim against Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook. However, in the end, the court dismissed both the copyright and defamation claims. The defamation dismissal just took a little longer.

Basis of Seinfeld Defamation Claim

The defamation claim arose from comments Jerry Seinfeld made during an October 2007 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman.

In the complaint she filed to initiate the defamation lawsuit, Lapine originally accused Seinfeld of characterizing her as a stalker, assassin, and mentally ill person. Interestingly, Lapine changed her defamation argument during the course of the lawsuit. Perhaps because the court said the transcripts and recordings from the David Letterman Show clearly demonstrate that Seinfeld did not make the statements that the complaint attributed to him.

In the court papers Lapine later filed to oppose Seinfeld’s dismissal motion, Lapine based her defamation argument on the fact Seinfeld said "that Lapine had fabricated opportunistic allegations of plagiarism against his wife." The problem for Lapine with this second argument is that Seinfeld's statement qualifies as an opinion.

Opinions Are Not Defamatory

A statement of opinion is constitutionally protected and can not be defamatory. However, merely labeling a statement as opinion does not automatically insulate the statement from being defamatory. For your statement to qualify as an opinion, your audience must realize that your statement is not meant literally.

In Seinfeld’s case, the court said it was inconceivable that a reasonable person would believe that Seinfeld's statements were conveying facts about Lapine. Seinfeld, a well-known comedian, made the statements in question primarily on the Letterman show, a late-night entertainment program, during a comedic interchange between Seinfeld and Letterman. His comments were statements of his opinion about the lack of merit of Lapine’s lawsuit and were, therefore, not actionable.