Tuesday, September 21, 2010

E-trade settles suit with Lindsay Lohan; she fails drug test

In an ironic duo of news today, the ABA Journal is reporting in separate posts that E-trade has agreed to settle a claim filed by Lindsay Lohan and that Lohan recently failed a drug test. As you may remember Lindsay Lohan sued E*Trade Financial Corp for $100 million, arguing that the "milkaholic" baby girl who appears in the commercial (see video below) was modeled after her. Go here for my original story on this. E-Trade has now agreed to settle the claim stating that the settlement agreement was "a simple business decision. We always have to consider the cost and time involved in litigation, and we are pleased to have the matter behind us." For more on the story go here. Meanwhile, however, it is also being reported that Lohan has failed a drug test while on probation. A judge has revoked her probation and issued a warrant for her arrest. For more on the story, go here. Now, I don't know if the lawsuit against E*Trade was for defamation, but if it was it seems to me it would have been a very interesting test case for the application of the "libel proof" doctrine, which essentially holds that a plaintiff can't recover for damages to her reputation because her reputation is so low already or because the libelous aspects of the statements about her are irrelevant in comparison to the true ones. Oh, well... We'll have to wait for another day for someone to make the argument... Here is the commercial in question:

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