# Springer v. Viking Press

> Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York · December 14, 1982 · 90 A.D.2d 315

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9885677

## Case

- **Full name:** Lisa Springer, Respondent-Appellant, v. Viking Press Et Al., Appellants-Respondents
- **Court:** Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
- **Decided:** December 14, 1982
- **Citations:** 90 A.D.2d 315; 457 N.Y.S.2d 246; 8 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 2613; 1982 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 18842
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Kupferman
- **Judges:** Markewich
- **Cited by:** 22 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9885677

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- affirming the trial court’s holding that the plaintiff failed to state a Section 51 claim even though the character in the novel State of Grace was based on the plaintiff, shared “some physical similarities” with the plaintiff, and had the same “common first name,” but not the…

## Opinion text

Kupferman, J. P. (dissenting in part).
I dissent and would affirm. The majority opinion fairly states the facts, although it omits and glosses over items of similarity which would indicate that the character portrayed in the defendants’ novel refers to the plaintiff.
It cannot be determined, as a matter of law (cf. Carlucci v Poughkeepsie Newspapers, 57 NY2d 883 ) that the writing is not “of and concerning” the plaintiff.
The court accepts the fact that the defendant author contemplated including the plaintiff in his book, although the portrayal would have been of a more appealing character. There can be no question but that the portrayal in the book is defamatory, and the only issue is identification. The dissimilarities which the court stresses, “both in manner of living and in outlook”, are the very basis for the allegations of defamation. To accept them as leading to the conclusion that there is no connection is the essence of a bootstrap operation.
The record contains a letter from a former lecturer and teacher at Columbia University who had known both the plaintiff and the author defendant, which has the following paragraph:
“I have read Robbie’s book and am absolutely amazed that he has put Lisa into it — under her own name! — as a psychology student who has become a high-class prostitute. What a childish revenge! She is described making torridly clinical love’ to an Italian tycoon-gangster who connives to have the pope killed...I wonder if L. [Lisa] has read it??” (emphasis added).
Markewich, Silverman and Milonas, JJ., concur with Bloom, J.; Kupferman, J. P., dissents in part in an opinion.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County, entered on September 24, 1981, modified, on the law, to dismiss the first, second and seventh causes of action and, except as so modified, affirmed, without costs and without disbursements.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9885677. Public record. Not legal advice.