Summary: Lindsay Lohan and her mother Dina have sued Fox News over a claim made by a TV personality about cocaine.
Lindsay Lohan and her mother Dina have sued Fox News and Michelle Fields for reportedly defaming them by saying the two used cocaine together, according to U.S. News & World Report.
The complaint was filed Monday in New York and it claims that Fields went too far when she said back on February 14, 2014 that “Lindsay Lohan’s mom is doing cocaine with her.”
The women are asking for damages for defamation, slander and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
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Fields made her comment on Sean Hannity’s show when she criticized parents of young celebrities for aiding in their behavior.
“As a public figure, Lindsay Lohan would have to prove they acted with actual malice and reckless disregard of the truth,” says Cornell University Law School professor Jeffrey Rachlinski. “That is a very difficult standard to prove, making it unlikely the case would succeed.”
Rachlinski views Lohan’s mom as a public figure, which makes the defamation claim dependent on a higher standard compared to someone lesser known.
On the other side of the spectrum, Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz does not view Dina Lohan as a public figure, which makes her claim more likely to succeed. He also said that Lindsay’s claims are likely to fail due to publicly admitting cocaine use.
“The defamation against the mother would be that she did it with her daughter,” Dershowitz said.
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Eugene Volokh, a University of California at Los Angeles School of Law professor, said, “If Fields sincerely – even unreasonably – believed that Lindsay Lohan’s cocaine use was recent, that Dina Lohan had used cocaine (as Lindsay had alleged; maybe Fields hadn’t heard the denials), and that the two had used cocaine together (perhaps because Fields sincerely ran Lindsay’s admitted use and Dina’s alleged use together in her mind, and recalled it as their using cocaine together), then there’d be no liability.”
Fox News issued the following statement:
“We will defend this case to the fullest. The remark about which Lindsay and Dina Lohan complaint was made on live television by a guest nearly a year ago. We removed the segment from our archives altogether last February and also apologized on-air. At that time, the Lohans did not make any demands for money, and we are surprised they are doing so now.”
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