Judge tosses out lawsuit over law center's hate group labels
Source: Associated Press
Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press
Updated 5:49 pm CDT, Monday, September 16, 2019
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit that accused leaders of the Southern Poverty Law Center of trying to financially destroy one of the organizations that it has labeled as a hate group.
The Center for Immigration Studies' lawsuit is devoid of any allegation that the law center made a false statement about the Washington-based nonprofit, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C., said in her ruling Friday.
"The upshot of the complaint is that defendants advanced a conclusion that was debatable, and that this expression of a flawed opinion harmed plaintiff's reputation," Jackson wrote.
The research group accused the Montgomery, Alabama-based law center's leaders of conspiring to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act when they designated it as a hate group in 2016. The judge, however, said the suit improperly attempts to "shoehorn" a defamation claim into the framework of a RICO case.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Judge-tosses-lawsuit-over-law-center-s-hate-group-14443413.php
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