LOS ANGELES (CN) — A superior court judge said at a hearing Thursday she would likely throw out a libel lawsuit filed by celebrity attorney Mark Geragos against the Los Angeles Times.
The lawsuit in question concerns a series of stories the Times published about settlement money from two class-action lawsuits against insurance companies New York Life and AXA, a French company, over unpaid life insurance claims to the family members of victims killed in the Armenian genocide.
Three Armenian American attorneys – Geragos, Brian Kabateck and Vartkes Yeghiayan – were able to secure a total of $37.5 million in settlements for the two cases. Perhaps just as importantly, for one of the first times, a court of law had affirmed that the Armenian genocide was a historical fact.
The settlement money was earmarked for descendants, nonprofits and churches. But as the Times first laid out in a lengthy 2022 story, many never got their money. Before he died in 2017. Yeghiayan accused Geragos and Kabatek of misappropriating the funds. Geragos and Kabateck accused Yeghiayan, whom they sued in 2011, of "a shameful scheme to personally loot” the fund. The suit settled in 2013, and Yeghiayan returned $31,000.
After the first story was published, the California State Bar announced that it was again investigating Geragos and Kabateck – having done so at least once already. In the unusual public announcement, the bar thanked the LA Times for "its excellent reporting on the distribution of Armenian genocide settlement funds.” The announcement enraged Geragos, who, in a phone interview at the time with Courthouse News, called the bar "fucking idiots."
The focus of Geragos's anger soon shifted to the Times. In March – months after Geragos and a partner purchased Los Angeles Magazine – he sued the Times for libel, accusing three of the paper's top investigative reporters, all of whom have won Pulitzer Prizes, of targeting the attorney in a "broadscale fishing expedition... trying to see what dirt, if any, they could find on him."
"Intent on creating a story where there was none, these LAT reporters buried their head in the sand and intentionally avoided the truth without adhering to the ethical principles of investigative journalism such as balance, fairness, and equal time," the 208-page complaint states.
In June, the Times filed an anti-SLAPP motion, a legal tactic often employed by media outlets to dismiss a lawsuit intended to limit free speech or political activity. The motion argued that Geragos hadn't actually pointed out any facts the stories about him had gotten wrong; instead, the lawyer had claimed that the publication defamed him by "implication."
"Plaintiff's lawsuit boils down to his ire that the facts accurately reported about him in connection with the AXA suit and State Bar Probe may leave an unflattering impression," the motion states. "But powerful public figures cannot suppress news reports or silence debate over matters of public concern, merely because some readers might draw unfavorable conclusions."
During Thursday's hearing, Superior Court Judge Wendy Chang read out a tentative ruling in favor of the LA Times' motion. She said the newspaper had simply quoted people accusing Geragos.
"The articles don't accuse plaintiff of misappropriation, theft or embezzlement," the judge said. "The court finds that even when a reader infers incorrect conclusions… that does not render something false or libelous."
Geragos's lawyer and a partner in his law firm, Tina Glandian, asked the judge to, at very least, stay the proceedings and allow her team to conduct discovery – for example, to look at the reporters' internal emails in order to discern their intent.
Glandian pointed to tweets and online comments that interpreted the article as a takedown of Geragos and Kabateck.
"You look at the comments, the community responses. Everyone reacted as if Mr. Geragos had misappropriated funds," she said, accusing the Times of "putting on a campaign to have the State Bar take action against Mr. Geragos."
"It’s a jury question," Glandian added. "All of this, this should get to a jury. They can decide whether these stories had the defamatory effect we say they did."
LA Times attorney Kelli Sager disagreed.
"If Mr. Geragos looks bad, at the end of the day, that’s a subjective interpretation readers can draw, but it’s not defamation," Sager said. The suit, she added, didn't "identify a single false defamatory fact. Instead, they say things are implied about Mr. Geragos."
Chang gave no indication that she would reconsider her ruling, but didn't make it final. If she does, the suit would be dismissed.
After the hearing, Glandian said in an email that she hoped the judge would change her mind.
"If not," Glandian added, "there is no question we will appeal."
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