The New York Supreme Court granted summary judgment for defendants and dismissed a libel suit against the author and publisher of Primary Colors, a novel based on the first presidential campaign of Bill Clinton. In a case that could have implications for future suits regarding online fantasy role-playing games, the trial court held that a plaintiff faces a higher standard when making a claim of libel against an author of a work of fiction than a work of nonfiction. While the publication of a factual statement about an individual that is both false and defamatory could give rise to a libel claim, “the description of the fictional character must be so closely akin to the real person claiming to be defamed that a reader of the book, knowing the real person, would have no difficulty linking the two.” Applying this higher standard, the court found that Carter-Clark failed to show that a reasonable person could attribute the conduct and characteristics of a fictional character in Primary Colors to Carter-Clark such that her reputation was damaged.Carter-Clark claimed that her reputation was damaged by the suggestion in the novel Primary Colors that she had a sexual encounter with Bill Clinton during his 1992 presidential campaign. The fictional book, which is based on the campaign of the then Arkansas governor, includes a description where the presidential candidate and a character named Ms. Baum, which Carter-Clark claims is her, emerge from a hotel room while adjusting their clothing and looking “disarrayed.” In Primary Colors, the character Ms. Baum is an adult literacy coordinator and a member of the regional board of the teachers union who first meets the presidential candidate at a Harlem library. There is only a slight physical description of Ms. Baum, who appears in nine pages of the novel. Carter-Clark was never an adult literacy coordinator or a member of the regional board of the teachers union.
The trial court first held that a writer of a book of fiction should not be held to the same investigatory standards as a writer of nonfiction. The author of Primary Colors held the book out as a work of fiction. The author’s note read, “None of the other characters are real. None of these events ever happened.”
The court then held that Carter-Clark failed to show that the author negligently determined that the actions of the fictional character of Ms. Baum could not be imputed to Carter-Clark. The court found that there were insufficient similarities between the fictional Ms. Baum and Carter-Clark such that a reasonable person would have been able to link the two. Ms. Baum and Carter-Clark did not have the same name or the same job. The novel did not have a substantial physical description of Ms. Baum. The only fact linking the two was that both first met a presidential candidate at a Harlem library.
The court also dismissed the libel claims against the publishing company. The court held that a plaintiff must meet an even higher standard when raising a libel claim against the publisher of a novel than the author of that novel, because requiring a publisher to make its own independent investigation of potentially defamatory statements in a work of fiction would impose a prohibitory economic impediment to the publishing industry.