Non-Cruise News…You Can’t Make This Up!

Last evening I received a news alert from the New Jersey Law Journal and I wasn’t sure if I should laugh, ask “What is the world coming to?” or to say, “It really is comforting to know that our Constitution is being protected”.  In the end I decided it was all three.

The alert itself needs no explanation: 

JUDGE DISMISSES ‘HOT CHICKS WITH DOUCHEBAGS’ LIBEL SUIT

A Bergen County judge has poured cold water on a defamation suit by three women whose photos appeared in the book “Hot Chicks with Douchebags,” finding the author’s use of the pictures is protected First Amendment speech. Yvette Gorzelany, Joanna Obiedzinski, and Paulina Pakos had alleged that the photos, taken of them clubbing at a Clifton bar with ostentatiously dressed men, caused them harm in their personal and vocational lives. But Superior Court Judge Menelaos Toskos found there was no actionable defamation because the photographs and accompanying text were used for humorous social commentary and a reasonable person would conclude they were meant to be satirical and not an assertion of fact.