Libel

1978 0406 – NYT – $1.9 Million Payment Ordered in Libel Case – [link]
- A judge has ordered The Twin Falls Times News to pay $1.9 million in libel damages after it refused to disclose its sources for articles that an insurance company said ruined its business.
- Trial was held earlier, and the judgment granting damages to the Sierra Life Insurance Company, of Twin Falls, was filed in Fifth District Court yesterday.
- Judge Ward said that Sierra’s case did not show the malice required under Idaho law to collect libel damages. But he said that unless the newspaper disclosed its sources, “there remains a genuine. issue of material fact as to whether the very disclosures defendants have refused to make would in fact establish malice.”