Collecting a Libel Tourist’s Defamation Judgment?

Abstract:     
A libel plaintiff sued an American defendant in a foreign nation where he took advantage of plaintiff-favoring defamation law to obtain a hefty judgment. He brings this judgment to the defendant’s State in the United States to collect from her bank account. The defendant’s State’s court could not have entered the plaintiff’s judgment because of First-Amendment doctrines that stem from New York Times v. Sullivan.

How should the United States court respond to the “libel tourist” and his judgment? My succinct article summarizes the tangled tale that emerges. Invoking a public policy exception to comity, United States courts have rejected foreign-nation defamation judgments. State legislation has buttressed these decisions. A Bill has been introduced in Congress to repel these judgments at the water’s edge. Against this tide, my article maintains that courts in the United States ought to take a more nuanced approach and recognize at least some overseas defamation judgments.

This draft article is in press at the Washington and Lee Law Review and at the Faculty of Law, Aix-Provence, France. It will undergo the usual editorial processes. The draft that follows was presented to the Remedies Discussion Forum at the Faculty of Law, Aix-Provence in the spring of 2009.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 18

Accepted Paper Series