Lindsay Lohan Suit Against Rapper Pitbull Is Dismissed
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Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Lindsay Lohan was dealt another legal setback Thursday — this time in her 2011 lawsuit against rapper Pitbull.
A New York district court judge dismissed Lohan’s lawsuit against the rapper for dropping her name in the line of his hit song, “Give Me Everything.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, Judge Denis Hurley ruled that the song is a protected piece of art under the First Amendment.
“Thus, the use of an individual’s name — even without his consent — is not prohibited by the New York Civil Rights Law if that use is part of work of art,” Hurley wrote in the ruling, obtained by THR.
Lohan filed the suit in 2011, against Pitbull and fellow musicians Ne-Yo, and Afrojack over their 2011 song “Give Me Everything.”
In the song, Pitbull raps the line, “Hustlers move aside, so I’m tip-toein’ to keep blowin’/ I got it locked up like Lindsay Lohan.”
Lohan claimed the song caused her emotional distress and violated her publicity rights for its “unwarranted, unauthorized, and unfavorable mention of [her] name and personality, and allusions to [her] physical and mental character.”
But in his ruling Thursday, Hurley said even if the song weren’t protected by the First Amendment, the single mention of Lohan’s name would be “insufficient to meet the threshold for extreme and outrageous conduct necessary to sustain a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
The actress was not sanctioned by the judge for filing a frivolous lawsuit, after Pitbull’s attorney argued that she should be.
But Lohan’s lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, was sanctioned for plagiarism after it was reported that her court briefs had actually been copied from newspapers, law firms and other legal websites. Hurley fined Ovadia $750 for an “affront to the court.”
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