Interesting Lawsuits in the News

A couple of lawsuits are making news. First, a marine sues Congressman John Murtha for his comments about the marine's unit in Iraq:

A Marine Corps staff sergeant who led the squad accused of killing two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq, will file a lawsuit today in federal court in Washington claiming that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) defamed him when the congressman made public comments about the incident earlier this year.

Attorneys for Frank D. Wuterich, 26, argue in court papers that Murtha tarnished the Marine's reputation by telling news organizations in May that the Marine unit cracked after a roadside bomb killed one of its members and that the troops "killed innocent civilians in cold blood." Murtha also said repeatedly that the incident was covered up.

Murtha argued that the questionable deaths of 24 civilians were indicative of the difficulties and overpowering stress that U.S. troops are facing. The congressman, a former Marine, has been a leading advocate for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.

In the court filing, obtained by The Washington Post, the lawyers say that Murtha made the comments after being briefed by Defense Department officials who "deliberately provided him with inaccurate and false information." Neal A. Puckett and Mark S. Zaid, suing for libel and invasion of privacy, also wrote that Murtha made the comments outside of his official scope as a congressman.

Murtha's been a loose cannon for months. Maybe this will shut him up.

And in an unusual act of utter desperation, Congresswomen Cynthia McKinney has sued Atlanta's biggest newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, over an editorial:

A Democratic congresswoman from Georgia is suing The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for libel.

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney filed charges against the newspaper's editor Cynthia Tucker and publisher John Mellott for an editorial column that ran in the Sunday July 30 paper about McKinney’s alleged altercation with police, according to All Headline News.

McKinney’s attorney, J.M. Raffauf, said the column describes McKinney whacking a police officer with her cell phone, a charge McKinney denies.

The suit says that other facts were misstated including a reported suggestion by McKinney that President Bush had known about the September 11 terror attacks in advance, and had allowed the plot to unfold so that he and his friends could profit from the resulting wars.

The suits says that McKinney wants an "immediate retraction in writing these false and libelous statements" and "demands that your retraction and correction be accompanied by an editorial in which you specifically repudiate your libelous statements."

Apparently McKinney has given up on getting the Journal-Constitution's endorsement (but she may still get mine - watch for the official HolyCoast endorsement on Monday).