Post-trial gag order brings uneasy call

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted February 5, 2016 2:53 PM

When someone wins a defamation case, does the First Amendment’s ban on government censorship prohibit a post-trial order enjoining the defendants from repeating the libelous statements?The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals considered this important question in a case where Kevin McCarthy and Albert Langsenkamp sued Paul Hartman and Patricia Fuller in the southern district of Indiana for defamation based on nine allegedly false statements. Although the jurors returned a verdict for the plaintiffs, they weren’t …

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