{"id":1958,"date":"2018-03-25T22:40:34","date_gmt":"2018-03-26T02:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/?p=1958"},"modified":"2023-07-25T11:44:57","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T15:44:57","slug":"fourth-times-a-charm-bill-oreilly-sued-for-defamation-by-fourth-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/2018\/03\/fourth-times-a-charm-bill-oreilly-sued-for-defamation-by-fourth-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth Time\u2019s a Charm: Bill O\u2019Reilly Sued for Defamation by Fourth Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/78\/2018\/03\/BillOReillySept2010.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1959\" src=\"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/78\/2018\/03\/BillOReillySept2010-281x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"281\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/78\/2018\/03\/BillOReillySept2010-281x300.jpg 281w, https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/78\/2018\/03\/BillOReillySept2010.jpg 721w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 281px) 100vw, 281px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Laurie Dhue, a former Fox News anchor from 2000 to 2008, is the fourth woman to bring a defamation suit against Bill O\u2019Reilly. All four women had previously reached settlement agreements with O\u2019Reilly over allegations of sexual harassment. In the settlement agreement with 21<sup>st<\/sup> Century Fox, the parent company for Fox News agreed to pay Dhue $1 million for sexual harassment allegations made against Bill O\u2019Reilly as well as Roger Ailes, the founding chairman. According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/22\/business\/a-fourth-woman-files-a-defamation-suit-against-bill-oreilly.html\">New York Times<\/a>, the settlement agreements regarding Bill O\u2019Reilly total $45 million, and these are only the ones known to the public.<\/p>\n<p>In her defamation <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/374708902\/Laurie-Dhue-Federal-Defamation-Complaint\">suit<\/a> filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Dhue is now claiming that O\u2019Reilly defamed her character after the settlement agreement by insinuating that she was lying about the sexual harassment, that she was politically motivated, and that he only paid the settlement to avoid the emotional toll of litigation on his family instead of admitting to the underlying crime. The lawsuit goes on to say that these comments are specifically directed at Dhue\u2019s character and trustworthiness, two things important to her new job as an advocate for addiction recovery.<\/p>\n<p>In response, O\u2019Reilly\u2019s lawyer, Fredric Newman, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/22\/business\/a-fourth-woman-files-a-defamation-suit-against-bill-oreilly.html\">said<\/a> that \u201cMr. O\u2019Reilly has never mentioned Dhue, and any attention she has received has been the result of her own actions.\u201d Additionally, he has recently filed a motion to dismiss the other defamation lawsuit brought by the three women mentioned previously. Newman, as O\u2019Reilly\u2019s spokesperson, believes that all of these suits are \u201cfrivolous\u201d and have \u201cabsolutely no merit.\u201d Dhue\u2019s attorneys, however, are asking for a jury trial and punitive, reputational, and compensatory damages.<\/p>\n<p><em>Jenna El-Fakih is an Entertainment Highlight Contributor for the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law and a current first year student at Harvard Law School (Class of 2020).<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Image: Justin Hoch,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:BillOReillySept2010.jpg\">BillOReillySept2010<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/legalcode\">CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Laurie Dhue, a former Fox News anchor from 2000 to 2008, is the fourth woman to bring a defamation suit against Bill O\u2019Reilly. All four women had previously reached settlement agreements with O\u2019Reilly over allegations of sexual harassment. In the settlement agreement with 21st Century Fox, the parent company for Fox News agreed to pay [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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