Almost a year ago the Las Vegas Sun (owned by the parent company of Las Vegas Weekly, where I am on staff) published a column criticizing Adelson's Venetian saying it had a "sorry Nevada regulatory record." According to today's Sun: "That was a reference to Venetian gaming violations for which the company was fined $1 million by the Nevada Gaming Commission in 2004." Sounds "sorry" to me. But Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Corp sued. Interestingly, the worry for the Sands was that this story would damage the Sands' attempt to compete against other local resort companies trying to score a gaming licence in Singapore that the Sands actually won.

 

Looking at the facts, Judge Michelle Leavitt rejected the lawsuit in November. In her most recent decision in the case she even noted that far from defamatory the Sun's language was "very kind" and "minor" when compared to the actual words of Nevada's Gaming Control Commission Chairman who levied the fine against Sands in 2004. End of story? Not when billionaires are involved! Instead of calling it quits, the Sands filed an amended complaint arguing with the help of Los Angeles lawyer Martin Singer that the Sun was guilty of "defamation by omission" by not looking into every other resort's regulatory history in the same story. Judge Leavitt seemed incredulous, asking Singer, the Sand's lawyer, "If they want to write something bad about me and I don't like it and I hear every other judge does it, I get to sue them?"

 

Singer: "I believe it does."

 

Judge Leavitt: "I think that's the most absurd argument I've ever heard."

 

The judge dismissed the complaint. So, now it is over? No, of course, not. Singer tells the Sun he must confer with his client before deciding whether to appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court. I wonder how many billable hours that appeal would add? Anyone, think any other court in the United States will have any other opinion about a story covered by the First Amendment with no known factual errors in it?