The publisher of the tabloid National Enquirer on Monday asked a California judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by former Playboy model Karen McDougal over the “catch and kill” contract she signed with the company.
McDougal sold the rights to her story about her alleged affair with President Donald Trump to American Media, Inc. (AMI), the parent company of National Enquirer, and signed a contract promising McDougal fitness columns in the publisher’s outlets and two covers featuring her. AMI and the Trump-friendly National Enquirer never ran McDougal’s story about Trump.
In her lawsuit against the publisher, McDougal demands to be released from the contract and claims that AMI secretly talked with longtime attorney to President Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, about the contract. She argued that AMI violated election law by purchasing the story and deciding not to publish it, and claimed that the publisher did not fulfill the contract’s obligations to publish her work.
In the motion to dismiss the case filed on Monday, lawyers for AMI argued that the First Amendment protects their right not to publish stories and their editorial decisions about other content featured in their publications. The publisher also argued that it did not violate any terms of the contract when it came to publishing work by McDougal.
When she signed the agreement with AMI, McDougal was represented by Keith Davidson, the same lawyer who represented porn actress Stormy Daniels in her nondisclosure agreement with Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Daniels has also filed a lawsuit over her hush agreement, arguing that the agreement is invalid because Trump did not sign it.
I didn’t read the contract nor even know if its been posted. Yet, if it did categorically state what benefits, et al, she’d receive if she signed it and they didn’t provide said benefits, then clearly they violated the basic tenet of contract law.
I could see them winning a case based on editorial discretion (I used to work for various magazines, and there were good reasons we didn’t publish some of the articles we solicited) but that’s the kind of thing that would require evidence to back up the claim. In addition, it’s hard for me to see how – if you’re framing this as a journalism case and not a hush-money case – the NDA part can possibly stand up once there’s a clear decision not to publish. And if – as McDougal apparently alleges – the decision not to publish was made before the contract was signed, well…
IIRC one of the biggest problems here was that both McDougal and Daniels had as their lawyer a guy named Keith Davidson who was also working with Cohen, a flagrant conflict of interest that’s obviously unethical and hugely harmful to the women. I don’t think the suit’s going to get dismissed, put it that way.
But, but enquiring minds want to know!
(Anyone remember that ad?)
@mattinpa I’m curious to find out if they were directed to Keith Davidson by someone, and Cohen is the most likely candidate, affiiliated with Trump.
And as a point of general points, I have a real hard time feeling sorry for McDougal, who believed that she and Spankee were in love and that he was going to provide her an apartment in Dump’s Dump. That’s almost prima facie evidence that she’s mentally unqualified to sign any contract. But hey, I woke up in a bad mood.