John Lott sued Steven Levitt for defamation on two grounds. The first involved a statement in Freakonomics that Lott's research results could not be replicated. The second involved an e-mail sent by Levitt asserting that Lott had bought a special issue of a journal to publish only views consistent with his findings in More Guns, Less Crime.
Levitt presented a motion to the court to dismiss the case.
But the judge has allowed the case to proceed on the second issue. From John Lott's blog,
p. 12: "While the Court concludes that Lott does not have an actionable defamation case against Defendants for the exertp [sic] from Freakonomics, the same cannot be said about Levitt's unfortunate and ill-considered email response to McCall."Quite frankly, I thought Lott's case against Levitt's assertion in Freakonomics that Lott's results could not be replicated was at least as strong.
... 2) p. 15: ". . . Levitt's email sounds as if he was "in possession of objectively verifiable facts." In his email Levitt states: 'It was not a peer refereed edition of the Journal. For $15,000 [Lott] was able to buy an issue and put in only work that supported him. My best friend was the editor and was outraged the press let Lott do this.' First, it would be unreasonable to interpret Levitt's unqualified statement that the journal edition was not 'peer refereed' as Levitt merely giving his opinion on the 'peers' chosen to review,or referee, the Special issue. Indeed, the editor of the Journal might be able to verify the truth or falsity of whether teh [sic] Special Issue was reviewd by peers. Furthermore, while Levitt argues that one person's "'peer' in the academic realm may be another person's 'hack'," this distinction is not reasonable when discussing the review process at a top university's academic journal. Second, a reasonable reader would not interpret Levitt's assertion that "For $15,000 [Lott] was able to buy an issue and put in only work that supported him" as simply a statement of Levitt's opinion. Levitt's email appears to state objectively verifiable facts: that Lott paid $15,000 to control the content of the Special Issue. . . . Levitt's motion to dismiss Count II of Lott's Complaint is denied."
Update: Tyler Cowen's posting at Marginal Revolution is somewhat misleading when he says "The suit is thrown out." Also see Ted Frank's latest on the case at OverLawyered.