Judge Dismisses Defamation Suit Against The Press Democrat

Thems the facts

​Not all newsrooms are filled with doom and gloom.

A California district judge this week dismissed claims that a series of articles between April and December 2010 in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat defamed one of the subjects of the stories: Gwendolyn Smith, a woman the articles describe as a "serial squatter" and whose landlord calls a "tenant from hell."

The articles described how Smith, a single mother, would move in and then use her paralegal experience to evade paying rent through various legal tactics.

Smith filed a defamation suit in May 2011 against the paper's reporter, Paul Payne, and the Press Democrat's editors; however the case was dismissed on Monday.

Smith alleged that Press Democrat reporters had violated her privacy by improperly using sealed court documents and had falsely written that they'd attempted to interview her. Smith also claimed that the articles falsely portrayed her as a "serial squatter" and a "criminal."

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston tossed the defamation claims, saying the court records were correctly used, that there was no evidence the reporters hadn't contacted Smith, and that the claims of character were represented in the court evidence -- even if they weren't worded exactly the same.

"The fact that the term 'serial squatter' may not have been used in a court document or proceeding doesn't defeat the application of the privilege to that statement," Illston wrote in the case, which was filed in San Francisco court. "Here, the allegation that Smith was a 'serial squatter' has the same 'gist and sting' as the allegations that Smith repeatedly ran scams where she moved into housing units with no intention of paying rent."

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