Normally we see Lexis in Court either bringing an action or defending themselves against one. So a nice change to see West in the dock.
The Legal Intelligencer reports on a suit brought by two legal professors, authors (or not as the case may be) against West claiming that the publishing company harmed their reputations when it falsely identified them as the authors of a poorly researched treatise update.
The Legal Intelligencer write:
Law Professors Clear Hurdle in Suit Against West Publishing
A federal judge has refused to dismiss a defamation suit brought by two law professors who claim that West Publishing harmed their reputations when it falsely identified them as the authors of a poorly researched treatise update.
In the suit, professors David Rudovsky of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Leonard Sosnov of Widener Law School claim that they did none of the work on the December 2008 supplement, or "pocket part," to their book, "Pennsylvania Criminal Procedure: Law, Commentary and Forms."
Their lawyer, Richard L. Bazelon of Bazelon Less & Feldman, argued that the supplement was a "sham" that offered almost nothing new to subscribers and that users of the book would mistakenly connect the poor quality to Rudovsky and Sosnov.
Over the two decades since the treatise was written, Bazelon said, the professors have routinely added about 150 new cases each year in annual updates. But the supplement published in December 2008, he said, added just three new cases and failed to take note of any of the cases that had been reversed in the past year by the state Supreme Court.
Read the full story here
