With apologies to Georgia O’Keefe.
As the Bard once said, “What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Lucky for William Shakespeare, he died centuries before the debut of reality show/unmistakable sign of the impending Apocalypse, The Real Housewives.
Yes, the Real Housewives franchise is, in general, an assault to the senses. However, one real housewife asserted that a specific part of another housewife was an assault to one specific sense.
How to put this on Most Strongly Supported, a family friendly-ish blog devoted primarily to the Law School Admission Test, secondarily to law school related concerns, and tertiarily (big word!) to the practice of law? Well, Brandy Glanville (a horrible human being featured in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) said in front of a gigantic, global audience that Joanna Krupa (a horrible human being featured in The Real Housewives of Miami) has a stinky, er, um… [turns beet red] … a stinky hoo-ha.
Clearly, this should’ve been ignored by everyone because it is a profoundly stupid thing to say, and anyone with an ounce of common sense and/or decency would realize that such a repulsive comment reflects poorly on the commenter, not the target. But alas, dear reader, that is not the world in which we live. So, what do you do when a stupid, insecure, mean spirited person says something stupid and mean spirited about you?
File a lawsuit!
This is America, babies! There ain’t nothing that you can’t extract money from with the threat of a lawsuit, or, even better, the actual filing of a lawsuit. So Krupa is taking Glanville to court. Isn’t this free speech, you say? In this country, isn’t it my God-given right to say nasty, stupid things? Well, as long as you claim is true or it doesn’t cause the object of the comment some kind of financial harm, sure!
Krupa, however, alleges defamation. There are a number of elements a plaintiff must prove to recover for defamation, but let’s just briefly talk about two of them:
Injury. A plaintiff must prove some kind of loss as a result of a defamatory claim, and usually the loss claimed is financial. Krupa claims that this nasty rumor interferes with her business and charitable ventures because prospective clients or donors are fixated on this comment rather than doing business. Whatever dollars she loses as a result, she claims, should be awarded in the form of monetary damages.
Falsity. Hoo boy… To recover in court, Krupa must prove that the claim is false. I have no idea what the legal strategy is here, and I really don’t want to even speculate.
That said, speculate away in the comments below!
