A Los Angeles judge has ventured into media-chilling waters by ruling that ex-supermodel Niki Taylor can sue the producers of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” for breaching an oral agreement not to focus on her past in an episode of the TV show.

In denying an anti-SLAPP motion to strike Taylor's contract claim against E! Entertainment Television, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper found the agreement was “very specific in defining the agreed upon content of the program” and rejected the defense's argument that it was a legally unenforceable “moral obligation.”

“Defendants have not provided, and the Court has been unable to locate, any authority that even suggests that California contract law prohibits interviewers and interviewees from forming contracts with each other,” she said in her order.

The decision could expose journalists to liability for publishing a story that turned out differently from what they represented it would be to an interview subject. But E! should have a decent chance of appellate reversal, in part because Cooper relied on a 1963 precedent that involved the distribution –- rather than the content –- of a show.

Taylor claimed in a complaint filed in January that she only agreed to be interviewed for the premiere episode of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” if “it would not focus on her past tragedies, such as the death of her sister, but would focus on her current endeavors and cast her in a positive light.”

Instead, she alleged, the show was “a salacious exposé about her past” that lumped her together with “well-known entertainers who have endured extremely public scandals, addictions and desires.”

The defense argued that the agreement covered only the content of the interview. But Cooper said Taylor had presented evidence, including an e-mail exchange between her publicist and the producers, of an “oral contract concerning the content of the show.”

Citing Leavy v. Cooney, 214 Cal.App.2d 496 (1963) as precedent for enforcing an agreement “similar to the contract at issue in this case,” the judge concluded:

The Court is reluctant to create a novel doctrine of state law, abridging the rights of certain individuals to contract, absent any clear California precedent, and is especially wary of doing so in the presence of what seems to be authority for a contrary position.

But Leavy involved a contract claim against a producer who exhibited a movie in theaters after agreeing to show it only on television. “[T]he jury and the [trial] court properly concluded that the theatrical use of the film was not authorized,” the appeals court said.

Using contract law to impose liability on a media entity for publishing truthful content is a wholly different matter. Taylor isn't alleging the content of the show about her was not truthful, having dropped false light and slander claims from her original complaint.

By Matthew Heller
8/13/07