Dec 24, 2007 3:38 pm US/Pacific
Libel Lawsuit By SF's Hebrew Academy Rejected
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / BCN) ―
The California Supreme Court Monday dismissed a libel lawsuit that was filed by Hebrew Academy of San Francisco and its dean nine years after an oral history transcript was placed in a University of California library.
The court said by a 6-1 vote that the lawsuit by the academy and its dean, Rabbi Pinchas Lipner, had missed the one-year statute of limitations for libel cases.
Lipner and the academy argued unsuccessfully that the one-year window for a lawsuit shouldn't begin until late 2001 because they didn't find about the 1993 transcript until then.
The lawsuit against San Francisco philanthropist Richard Goldman, the Jewish Community Federation and the University of California Regents was filed in San Francisco Superior Court in 2002.
The court majority said that even though the transcript had limited circulation, it was "accessible to the public" when it was placed in the library in 1993 and that the statute of limitations therefore began then.
The lawsuit concerned an oral history interview with Goldman, a past president of the federation, that was conducted in 1992 as part of a research program of the Bancroft Library of University of California, Berkeley. The purpose was to document several decades of Jewish philanthropy in San Francisco.
Lipner and the academy alleged they were defamed in comments in which Goldman said, among other things, that Lipner was not "an honorable man" and "has done little for the community" and that the federation's support for the school was a financial drain.
The transcript was published by the library in 1993 and over the next several years about 10 copies were acquired by various libraries and one
individual.
The state high court overturned a 2005 Court of Appeal ruling that would have allowed a trial. It upheld an earlier decision in which Superior Court judge Ronald Quidachay dismissed the case in 2003.
Because the lawsuit never went to trial, there was no court determination of whether Goldman's comments were in fact libelous.
The academy is an Orthodox Jewish day school.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
Live: Caltrans Briefing On Fatal Bay Bridge Truck Plunge
CBS 5 Education 
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Comments