NJ Trial Court Tosses Defamation Case Against Hot Chicks With Douchebags
A Superior Court judge in Bergen County New Jersey dismissed a defamation case against a number of defendants based on the claims of two women who sued over photographs taken of them clubbing at a Clifton, NJ bar which were included in a book titled, "Hot Chicks With Douchebags," published by a Simon & Schuster division. In a 9-page written opinion granting summary judgment, the trial judge dismissed the complaint finding there was no actionable defamation claim because the photographs and accompanying text are used for humorous social commentary and the book is protected by the First Amendment. The photos showed the women with one or more men described as "douchebags", which the book's author describes as men with "Greasy foreheads, spiked frosted hair, oiled up faces dripping with Tag Shot spray", dressed in "Armani Exchange T-shirts and rank cologne wafting off their backs like fetid pollen clouds as they pump their fists and attempt to gri