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Protecting Yourself

I was once sued for $1,000,000 dollars. That's ONE MILLION dollars. Why? Because my on-air partner, at the time, was not too bright and did not understand how far you could go saying things about someone while still staying protected by the law. Let me relate to you the incident from my upcoming book, “The Cash Cage”:

“The day that we were served with the lawsuit is etched quite clearly in my mind. It was a little after 9 A.M. The radio station had just changed ownership. Paul Todd was out as General Manager and a new guy came in. The new company, S&F Communications had literally just taken over that very day. Talk about a day for a lawsuit to be served. Suddenly, a sheriff's deputy walked into the control room and handed me some papers. I wasn't sure what it was at first. Then my jaw dropped. When we got off the air, the very first interaction with our new General Manager was to inform him that we were being sued. It was not just the company, either. Both my partner and I were personally named in the lawsuit. I was pretty freaked out. I didn't know a thing about the law. I just knew I did not have $1,000,000 dollars. How did this all come about? Here's what the Associated Press reported in November, 1986:

On-air comments by radio station announcers about a death sentence for two dogs in September is the basis for a judge's $1 million libel suit against the announcers and their radio station. In papers filed in Virginia Beach Circuit Court yesterday, General District Substitute Judge W. Brantley Basnight III alleged that two announcers at WNVZ-FM and the owners of the station maliciously attacked him on the radio after he ordered the dogs destroyed Sept. 2. The suit contends that during their early morning radio show, the [DJs]..repeatedly called Basnight 'stupid', 'redneck' and 'Judge Assnight.' The statements were false, defamatory and insulting...malicious, slanderous, libelous and...tended to violence and breach of the peace," according to the papers.

The fact of the matter is, it was my partner who called the guy "Assnight" and a "redneck". I remember tongue-in-cheek correcting him when he said, "Assnight". That was my job. I was the balance. I'm sure I called the decision itself, "stupid" and maybe the judge himself, but that was about the extent of my guilt. All of that is covered by the protection to express an opinion. Most would argue that this was typical morning radio patter and given the context of our show and the fact that the judge was probably a public figure, our indiscretions weren't that egregious. It didn't matter. We had a judge on our asses, with a lawsuit in his circuit. The guy was among his friends.

I was pissed. I blamed my partner for pushing it too hard. The lawsuit hung over my wife and I until I left Z-104. There was a point where we actually discussed getting a divorce and putting everything in her name just so that if it came to a judgment against me, we wouldn't lose everything we had. There were interviews, depositions, discovery and lots of letters from lawyers. I kept all the papers and have it nicely tucked away as a reminder that at one time, somebody actually thought I was worth a million dollars. It never went to trial. The lawyers sent each other notes for a couple of years and got plenty of billable hours out of it. In the end, I was informed the judge settled for a few thousand dollars. I bet the lawyers did better than he did.”

- from “The Cash Cage” by Corey Deitz, ©2002

When you say something on the air about a person, an organization or a business, and you state it as a fact, you better be damn sure it IS a fact. Because if you are wrong, then you have just slandered someone. I'm also under the impression that you are responsible for a caller who slanders someone. That's why when I hear a caller make a statement about someone or something that borders on slander, I interject that the caller is stating an opinion. That's because if you state something as an opinion, you have a much better chance of defending your comments and being protected under the law because opinion is protected by the First Amendment.

In my case, I was dragged into the lawsuit by my partner's big mouth. So, how do you protect yourself against that? If you find you have an on-air partner who doesn't understand what slander is, ask management to educate him. You may want to tell your supervisor, privately, to avoid needless ruffled feathers. If you are on-the-air and your partner makes a comment that you think might be slanderous, interject he is only stating an opinion and try to mitigate the moment. If nothing else, it will demonstrate that you did not endorse his statement and this is a good defense if you wind up in trouble.

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