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'Product disparagement' suit raises First Amendment questions.

Publication: Trial
Publication Date: 01-JAN-04 		Format: Online - approximately 1053 words
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Full Article Title: 'Product disparagement' suit raises First Amendment questions.(Consumer Union's negative rating on Suzuki Motor Corp.'s Samurai affects the press' freedom of speech)

Article Excerpt
The U.S. Supreme Court in November declined to hear a case pitting a major automaker against the country's best-known product-testing organization, allowing a "product disparagement" lawsuit to go to trial despite constitutional alarm bells sounded by First Amendment advocates.

For defendant Consumers Union (CU)--which publishes the influential Consumer Reports magazine--the denial means a lost opportunity to reaffirm important free-press principles. For plaintiff Suzuki, it means a chance to finally clear the company's name and that of its long-discontinued SUV, the Samurai.

The roots of the conflict reach back to 1988, when Consumer Reports published a review claiming that die popular vehicle tipped up too easily. After the magazine rated it "not acceptable," Samurai sales dropped dramatically.

In 1996, one year after Suzuki stopped producing the vehicle, the auto-maker sued for product disparagement, alleging that the consumer organization had rigged the Samurai test. To prove its claim, Suzuki must clearly show that CU acted with actual malice when...

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