NY judge orders paper to delete defendant’s name from article

A New York judge ordered the New York Daily News on April 11, 2017, to temporarily delete the name of a lawsuit defendant from a published article. Two days later, after an appeal by the newspaper, the judge reversed the order.

The paper had reported in a 2016 article that a Connecticut woman, Jessica Pelletier, had sued former bosses — including Eric Lerner — in a New York City court, alleging Lerner had sexually harassed her.

After Lerner filed a countersuit in Nassau County, State Supreme Court Justice John Galasso in Mineola, New York, issued a temporary restraining order demanding that the Daily News remove Lerner’s name from its reporting on the case.

The newspaper condemned the court’s initial decision. “It is surprising and disturbing that a court would order a non-party newspaper to take down information about a publicly filed lawsuit,” Daily News Deputy General Counsel Matthew Leish said after the ruling.

In an April 12 editorial, the Daily News said Galasso “must have missed the day the Constitution was taught in law school.”

“Galasso has earned himself a coveted Daily News Knucklehead award. He cannot give it back, and we will never take this editorial down,” continued the editorial, which mentioned Lerner’s name several times.

That same day, the Daily News filed an appeal with the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, and the following day, attorneys for the newspaper and Lerner jointly submitted a voluntary withdrawal of the request for a preliminary injunction and a proposed order to vacate the restraining order.

Leish told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, “The judge signed the order and that was the end of it.”