California Court Rejects Britney Spears' Sex Tapes Claim
December 5, 2006
Brian R. Guth- Los Angeles
“In the Dick Van Dyke show a married couple slept in different beds, but in Sex and the City the single women slept in many different beds,” a Los Angeles Superior Court judge wrote, to explain why “contemporary standards of defamation” dictate that Britney Spears lose her libel lawsuit against US Weekly.
Spears filed the lawsuit based on the magazine’s report that she and her husband Kevin Federline had filmed themselves having sex, and that she had acted “goofy” when viewing the tape in her lawyer’s office. Ironically, news of Spears’ separation from Federline followed within one week of the judge’s early November decision in the libel lawsuit.
US Weekly responded to the lawsuit by filing a motion to strike her complaint under a California law known as the “anti-SLAPP” statute. “SLAPP” stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” A handful of jurisdictions have anti-SLAPP statutes that permit libel defendants to mount early challenges to lawsuits and to recover legal fees if they succeed in having a lawsuit dismissed.
Under the California statute, because the article constituted protected speech, to avoid dismissal Spears was required to demonstrate a probability that she would prevail on her claim by showing that her complaint was valid and that she could make a basic showing of evidence to support a verdict. Under this analysis, according to the court, the key issue was whether the article was defamatory.
The judge analyzed the claim on the basis of whether it is defamatory at all to accuse a married couple of making a sex tape. She noted as a backdrop to the claim the fact that Spears “has publicly portrayed herself in a sexual way in her performances, in published photographs and in a reality show, Chaotic.”
In analyzing the defamatory nature of the statement, the court observed that “[t]he standard for defamatory statements is constantly changing.” The judge observed that as “camcorders have become more readily available to the general population,” a number of claims surrounding “sex tapes” have wound up in the courts. The judge noted that, as a result: “Intimate acts which previously were kept behind closed doors are now easily documented for posterity.” She then posed the question whether “in this day and age,” it is defamatory to say that a married couple taped themselves having sex, “for their own personal use[?]” The court answered its own question: “Arguably not.”
The court also noted that Spears’ reality program – which featured her and Federline before they were married – depicted Spears filming Federline naked in the shower, conducting an interview of Federline while she was naked, “and otherwise catching [Spears] talking uninhibitedly about her sex life.” Therefore, the court held, the article was not defamatory as Spears “has put her modern sexuality squarely, and profitably, before the public eye[.]”
Given the “contemporary standards of defamation, which evolve over time,” the court held, Spears’ defamation claim could not succeed.
For more information, e-mail Brian R. Guth at brian.guth@hklaw.com or call toll free, 1-888-688-8500.