Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder has decided to drop his lawsuit against the Washington City Paper and its staff writer Dave McKenna that alleged Snyder was defamed in an article McKenna wrote about him in the newspaper in November 2010. The announcement of the suit's end came on Saturday evening, September 10, on the eve of the Redskins' first regular game of the 2011 NFL season.
The controversial and widely unpopular owner, among many Redskins fans, had been heavily criticized in Washington for seeking $1 million in damages from the small independent paper, and for giving the article much greater visibility. Shortly before withdrawing the suit, Snyder acknowledged in a New York Times interview that he had never actually read the article but was briefed about its details.
Longtime fan objections to Snyder repeated in City Paper article
The story, titled "The Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder," reiterated a number of fan grievances with Snyder's ownership of the team, including the Redskins' suing a 73-year-old woman who couldn't afford her season ticket contract, claiming a waiting list still exists for tickets, and high stadium concession prices.
"In his original lawsuit, Snyder said he was defamed by several parts of the article, including the suggestion that he had been kicked out as chairman of the board of the Six Flags amusement park chain and had gone 'all Agent Orange' by cutting down a stand of trees on federally protected land that blocked river views from his Potomac mansion in 2004," Paul Farhi wrote on the Washington Post website in "Redskins owner Daniel Snyder drops lawsuit against Washington City Paper," September 11, 2011.
The suit initially was filed in New York with the reason given that Atalaya Capital Management, the hedge fund that is the parent company of the City Paper, is based there. But the case later was moved to D.C. Superior Court in Washington, with McKenna added as a defendant and Atalaya Capital dropped from it.
McKenna and the City Paper fought back against the suit, terming it an effort to force them into backing off the story due to Snyder's extensive financial resources. They had asked a D.C. Superior Court judge to dismiss the case under a District of Columbia law--known as strategic lawsuits against public participation or (SLAPP)--enacted to counter legal action designed to stifle criticism in publications of public figures in the face of potential litigation.
Legal analysts estimated that Snyder would have difficulty prevailing on the merits of his case as the D.C. law protected much of what the press could say about someone in the public arena.
Snyder admitted to never having read article about him
In a New York Times interview published just days before he dropped the suit, Snyder said he never read the City Paper article on him. When questioned, he also noted that undertaking legal action may not have been the wisest strategy to pursue.
On the matter of accusing the City Paper of anti-Semitism when first bringing the suit, which Snyder did because it ran a photo of him with horns and a goatee added, he said "it really angered me. It's not nice."
In a statement the City Paper issued after the case was withdrawn, it said: "From the beginning, we have believed that Snyder's lawsuit was a baseless one, designed to intimidate a journalist and a publication that have been among his most persistent critics. We've also argued--in our pages, and in court--that our article never said any of the allegedly libelous things Snyder claimed it did."
Redskins' spokesman Tony Wyllie stated: "The lawsuit was pursued as a means to correct the public record following several critical factual misstatements in the Washington City Paper article."
However, both sides continued to argue over whether the paper had ever indicated that some of what it wrote was not to be taken as literally true.
According to the Washington Post, for which he additionally has done freelance work, McKenna said that Snyder's representatives had requested that he not sue in exchange for dropping the suit and he had agreed. In dismissing the case, both parties also consented to incur their own legal costs.
Sources:
- Mike Madden, "Dan Snyder Drops Lawsuit against Washington City Paper, Dave McKenna," Washington City Paper, September 10, 2011
- Paul Farhi, "Redskins owner Daniel Snyder drops lawsuit against Washington City Paper, Washington Post, September 11, 2011
- Erik Wemple, "Daniel Snyder lawsuit dropped against Washington City Paper, Washington Post, September 11, 2011
- Andrew Goldman, "Redskins Owner Dan Snyder on Being a Marked Man," New York Times, September 8, 2011
John Seidenberg - John Seidenberg has worked on newspapers, newsletters, radio news, and produced specialized news publications as well as freelance ...
