Legal Question in Civil Litigation in New York

Defamation Law Suit

I have a friend X who is sued by person Y

Person Y claimed in the law suit that person X calls person Y at Y's home phone and harrases person Y.

This never happened since the date & time stated by person Y in the law suit. Person X never called person Y. Person Y is influential politically and did not produce any records from the phone company.

Can person X legally obtain personal records of person Y from web sites such as 1-800-US-SEARCH or

http://www.docusearch.com and show those records to the judge in the court about person Y's character ?

Thanks in advance


Asked on 7/06/00, 2:35 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
David Wright Law Offices of David Wright

Re: Defamation Law Suit

I guess there would be two angles here.

First, is a person's "dirty laundry" admissible in court? The answer is that Prior Bad Acts are indeed admissible as impeaching the credibility of a party to a civil lawsuit. Prior Bad Acts usually involve prior criminal acts, but may consist of non-criminal incidents, if the court at your trial decides they tend to impeach the credibility.

Second, your inquiry into the other party's background may well yield information suggesting that the other party -- who you explain is suing for defamataion -- didn't have much of a reputation so how can he say you damaged that reputation. I wouldn't think that the Internet sites would be of any value. Better source might well be articles from local newspapers, about the person.

Note that a "public figure" has very limited rights to sue for libel or slander (defamation)under NY law.

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Answered on 9/09/00, 5:18 am


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