C. Delores Tucker Loses Her Appeal

C. Delores Tucker, who almost single handedly helped Death Row lose their distribution deal with Time-Warner, lost her attempt to sue Time Magazine and Newsweek, claiming that they had mischaracterized her dispute with the estate of the late Tupac Shakur. The Supreme Court’s 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out 74 year old Tucker […]

C.

Delores Tucker, who almost single handedly helped Death

Row lose their distribution deal with Time-Warner, lost

her attempt to sue Time Magazine and Newsweek, claiming

that they had mischaracterized her dispute with the estate

of the late Tupac Shakur.

The Supreme Court’s 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

threw out 74 year old Tucker and her husband’s lawsuit,

in which they were seeking $10 million from the Shakur’s

estate for “loss of consortium” and other claims because

of references to her in songs on Shakur’s 1996 album “All

Eyez on Me.”

According

to the Newsweek and Time articles, the couple claimed

that Tupac’s lyrics caused her so much distress that her

and her husband were unable to have sex. According to

Tucker, the lawsuit was not about sex and she had revised

her suit and sued multiple media outlets, reporters and

the attorney for the estate for Tupac Shakur for remarks

he made on the subject.

The Court

ruled that since the Gangsta Rap basher was a public figure,

she had to prove that Time and Newsweek reporters wrote

their stories with actual malice. The Court ruled that

there was no such proof.

The 3rd U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals said the anti-rap crusader was

a public figure and had to prove that Time and Newsweek

reporters wrote the stories with actual malice. The court

said there was no proof to support that.

“Although

sex, sleaze and celebrities sell, one cannot deliberately

change facts and call fiction `news’ and not permit a

jury to find malice,” they said in their appeal.

Her lawsuit

over the lyrics was also dismissed. Her case against Shakur’s

estate attorney Richard Fischbein is still pending. The

3rd Circuit said there was evidence that Fischbein acted

with malice by encouraging stories on the sex angle, even

after the lawsuit was revised. "No participant in

public debate should be put to a defamation trial for

his mere failure to discern the actual alleged intended

meaning of an (at best) ambiguously drafted pleading,”

Fischbein said.