Strangest defamation case of the year

This has got to be the weirdest defamation case of the year, if not the decade - Copeland-Jackson v. Cutlip (story here). Plaintiff David Copeland-Jackson alleged that the defendant, Joseph Cutlip, had defamed him by falsely accusing the Copeland-Jackson of molesting him years before. The case, brought before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, appeared to proceed as many do, with service of process supposedly being acknowledged by the defendant, and uncontested proceedings before the court resulting in the rendition of a three-million dollar verdict in favor of the plaintiff. Except, much to the surprise of the court, the entire thing was a sham. The plaintiff forged the defendant's receipt of service of process, and forged and falsified other documents used to win the case. The defendant, so the article reports, did not even become aware of the litigation pending against him until he received notice of the judgment itself.

Some might be quick to point a finger of blame at the judge - Huvelle herself stated her regret that she was "not astute enough" to prevent this fraud. But a realistic understanding of the nature of our courts makes it clear enough that the judge is the last person who should be blamed for such a fraud falling on the court. Ours is an adversarial system, and judges not only expect to be appraised of the opposing viewpoints to be raised in a case by the contesting parties, but are duty-bound to avoid conducting any external investigation of their own. With dozens, perhaps hundreds of complicated cases pending before each federal judge at any given moment, it is folly to expect that a judge would conduct such an investigation even if the resources were at hand. Happily, however, the system works. No money could ever have been collected from the defendant without the ruse being uncovered (as it was), and judgments obtained by fraud are easily vacated (as this was). The conspirators who arranged this deception have been caught and will be jailed, as they should be, for their criminal misrepresentations.

Neatly tying up the frayed ends of this matter, the named defendant, Cutlip, now has his own clear-cut cause of action for defamation against Copeland-Jackson. The latter produced forged documents purporting to be from Cutlip asserting that Cutlip "willfully lied" in making his previous molestation allegations. These were false statements of fact about Cutlip (never mind that they were purported to be by Cutlip, since they are now known to have originated with Copeland-Jackson), which would tend to damage Cutlip in the eyes of his peers, communicated to other parties (here, to the court). Although statements made in court proceedings normally obtain a cloak of immunity from defamation actions, this protection does not inhere where the proceeding is fraudulent. Copeland-Jackson may have contrived to win a temporary victory on paper, but justice prevails in the end, as both Cutlip and the Court have the opportunity to see Copeland-Jackson pay an appropriate price for his actions towards each of them.