Defamation lawsuit against Sammy Hagar dismissed

More celebrity lawsuit news from Publisher’s Marketplace:

A defamation lawsuit filed against former Van Halen lead singer Sammy Hagar over his 2011 memoir RED has been dismissed. The AP reports an Iowa court judge ruled that the former Playboy bunny — identified as Jane Doe in court documents — who filed the suit was not defamed when Hagar said in his book that she had falsely accused him of fathering her child as part of an extortion scheme. “We’re certainly gratified by the result and we hope this means that it’s all over,” Hagar’s attorney Wesley Kinnear told the AP. “It’s difficult to be involved in litigation like this. It was a surprise to him. And he’s very pleased that the judge ruled the way that she did.”

The judge in the case, Linda Reade, ruled the woman could not have been defamed because she was never named in Hagar’s memoir, was erroneously identified as being from California, and she never proved any financial, reputational or emotional harm from his statements as “only individuals who already knew about their relationship, not the general public, would have understood Hagar was referring to her in the book.”

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