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SIDIS vs THE NEW YORKER

 

 

 

"Anthony Lewis doesn't believe movie stars and other well-known persons are always properly deemed public figures. Lewis thus sees as mistaken the 1940 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Sidis v. F-R Publishing Corporation. The case arose when James Thurber, writing under a pseudonym for The New Yorker, targeted a former boy "genius," William James Sidis, who was then a quiet, eccentric, middle-aged man living in obscurity. Sidis sued for libel, but the Court ruled, in effect, that a person who once was famous is always famous. Lewis disagrees, emphasizing . . . that courts must balance the competing values of personal privacy and the public's right to know." FindLaw.com, Feb. 29, 2008

 

 Lindey, Alexander, William James Sidis, Petitioner, v. F-R Publishing Corporation: U.S. Supreme Court Transcript of Record with Supporting Pleadings. Paperback, 32 pages, $19.84.