In early April 2015, we reported that Court grants summary judgment for the defendants in Klayman v. City Pages et al. Now the 11th Circuit of the United State Court of Appeals has affirmed that summary judgment, according to the unpublished decision posted online on Friday at Larry Klayman v. City Pages, et al.
The latest decision concludes:
Considering all the evidence, and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of Mr. Klayman, we hold that a reasonable jury could not find the existence of actual malice on the part of the defendants by clear and convincing evidence.
The district court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of the defendants. As a result, Mr. Klayman’ s claim that the district court erred in denying his motion to per fect a prayer for punitive damages is rendered moot.
IV
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’ s grant of summary judgment on all counts, the denial of Mr. Klayman ’s motion to disqualify, and the denial of his motion to perfect a prayer for punitive damages.
Read the unpublished decision online here.
Backstory
Conservative lawyer and Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman sued local artist and former blogger Ken Avidor, former City Pages Blotter shepherd Aaron Rupar, City Pages and the et als for defamation in 2013. As the Pioneer Press first reported in Florida-based lawyer sues City Pages for defamation:
A Florida lawyer has hit City Pages with a $1.4 million defamation lawsuit for a story last fall that said the lawyer inappropriately touched his children.
Larry Klayman's lawsuit, announced Monday, March 25, said City Pages sought to hurt the attorney in retaliation for Klayman's representation of Bradlee Dean, the controversial anti-gay preacher and founder of an Annandale-based group You Can Run But You Cannot Hide.
The City Pages story, which ran Sept. 28 last year, said an appeals court in Ohio had ordered Klayman to pay his ex-wife $325,000 in attorney's fees, and that the order noted a lower court magistrate had heard evidence of sexual abuse from his children's pediatrician, who reported it to children's services, and from a social worker at that agency.
The story said the social worker's findings were changed to "unsubstantiated," but the magistrate found that Klayman acted in a "grossly inappropriate manner" with one of his children, although his conduct may not have been sexual....
The wags at Wonkette immediately trolled Klayman with Snipy's post, In Which Wonkette Tries To Bait Larry Klayman Into Suing Us Also, Too, but to no avail.
Klayman appears to have moved on to fry other fish. Talking Points Memo reported earlier this month in [Clive] Bundy Accuses Obama Of Conspiracy To Snatch His Land In Bizarre Lawsuit that Klayman is "the conservative attorney who filed the lawsuit on Bundy’s behalf."
Image: Artist and former blogger Ken Avidor. Self portrait. Used with permission.
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