by Paul L Maier
What he was looking for was a word from Shannon Jennings, who had held him in thrall from the moment she stepped into his life at an archaeological dig in Israel several years ago. She was a brilliant excavator, a delightful friend, a passionate lover—in a word, a genuine soul mate.
Shannon was back in Israel writing an addendum to the final report on an excavation she and her father had conducted at a site north of Jerusalem called Rama, the same dig that uncovered a 2,000 year old skeleton and catapulted Jon and Shannon into a very harrowing experience. Jon had told her to pick up a copy of the overseas edition of Newsweek when it hit the stands. Finally, a note appeared in his e-mail that revealed she hadn’t forgotten.
Why didn’t they put your picture on the cover, Jon, rather than all those dreadful beasties?! What’s one demon, more or less?! I’m glad you put the “prophets” in their place, although I think you were too easy on them. For instance, I would have called them sensationalizing seers or odious oracles. Maybe pathetic prognosticators? I’m sure, though, that they’re crying all the way to their respective banks. I just can’t understand why anyone with an IQ over 65 buys their stuff in the first place.
It was sad, thought Jon, that Shannon was so reticent about her opinions. If only the girl would speak her mind!
Several weeks later, a squat, swarthy individual with an augmented waistline appeared at Jon’s office door. With a forced smile, he asked if he was addressing Dr. Jonathan P. Weber.
“I confess: I’m Weber,” Jon replied.
The man plopped two documents into his hand and said, “You have just been served with this summons from the First Judicial Department of the State of New York, as well as the attending complaint. Good day, sir!” The process server quickly turned about and left.
Jon opened the documents: Melvin Morris Merton was suing him and Newsweek for libel, slander, and defamation of character in the amount of $38 million.
TWO
Merton’s lawsuit called for $5.5 million in compensatory damages and $32.5 million in punitive damages. The former was for actual losses Merton claimed in reduced book sales present and projected, canceled speaking engagements, and terminated subsidiary rights due to “Professor Weber and Newsweek making me out to be a laughingstock,” Merton told the press. Punitive damages would serve as a public warning against “further attacks on those who truly declare to the world the great prophecies in Holy Scripture, and alert people to the imminent return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
The legal department at Newsweek called to allay Jon’s anxiety. They would file an immediate answer and defend both the magazine and himself against Merton’s lawsuit. Since the case involved the freedom of the press, they would move ahead with all flags flying. First, of course, they would try to have the case thrown out of court, which they assured Jon was the simplest, least expensive, and most justified strategy.
Obviously he was grateful that the magazine’s celebrated stable of legal beagles would be in his corner, but he found it hard to ignore the gnawing anxiety that would hit anyone sued for $38 million. Even in the worst-case scenario, of course, Merton could never collect that entire sum. But how much might he walk off with if he won? While Newsweek likely had deep pockets, his own were shallow enough.
The case would be heard in the First Judicial Department of the State of New York at the Manhattan Supreme Court, which was not at the top of the judiciary rankings, but merely the regular venue for civil cases. A preliminary hearing was set for mid-July. Representing Merton was a flamboyant attorney from Mississippi, Harrison Pomeroy, well known in legal circles as a notorious leech with a hobby of squeezing blood out of stones. The series of high-profile and lucrative victories Pomeroy had won for his clients did nothing to calm Jon’s concerns.
For the defense, Alan Dershowitz of Harvard, Jon’s academic colleague, had offered his services. It was a gesture much appreciated by Jon, who would have hated seeing Dershowitz on the other side. But for now, Newsweek decided to go with its own legal department. “That’s what we pay them for,” Kenneth Woodward explained. That team was commanded by S. Fletcher Stanwick and Associates, which had an able track record in defending the magazine.
Presiding Judge Paul W. Parker, a silver-haired sage of middle height and age, opened the preliminary hearing on a steamy Wednesday morning in July. Fletcher Stanwick, all six feet, four inches of him, immediately stood up for the defense and moved that the case be dismissed. Deeming the case a frivolous lawsuit, he challenged the allegation that the plaintiff had suffered any damage to his reputation. As a well-known leader among fundamentalist Christians, Dr. Melvin Morris Merton was “in the public domain” and therefore subject to public comment in accordance with the freedoms of speech and press. Finally, Stanwick stated that the damages sought were “an outrageous example of legal adventuring, since they are out of all proportion to the alleged damages sustained.”
When the judge turned to Harrison Pomeroy for the riposte, Merton’s stubby, rotund attorney shook his hairless head sadly and got to his feet. In a thick southern accent, he drawled, “Reverend Dr. Melvin Morris Merton is highly regahded not only in what we’re proud to call the Bible Belt in the South, but among true believahs everywhere.” Pomeroy asserted that the attacks by “skeptical scholahs in the Nawth” against Dr. Merton—including using such language as “prophecy fanatics” and “false prophet”— undermined his client’s leadership and defamed his reputation. Claiming Newsweek magazine equally liable for such libel, he urged the judge not to dismiss it. Then, wiping his forehead in the oppressive heat, Pomeroy sat down.
Judge Parker looked down from the bench, touching the tips of his fingers together. He paused for several moments, as if still unsure of his ruling. Then he nodded and said, “This court well realizes the importance, even the sacredness, of the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. Ordinarily, I would indeed dismiss this case on that basis. However, I have serious concerns about whether the exemption from filing suits for defamation on the part of public figures applies here. I certainly find Professor Weber ‘in the public domain,’ but I regret to say that I, for one, am not convinced that the Reverend Dr. Melvin Merton is as public a figure. Accordingly, this case will proceed as filed.”
Stanwick stood up to object. “But, Your Honor—”
“My ruling stands,” said the judge. “We will now turn to our calendars, set a date for the trial, and proceed to the discovery phase.” Both sides agreed on a trial by jury two months later, and the preliminary hearing ended. Melvin Morris Merton, who had not said a word, stood up, flashed a dark smile at the table for the defense, and gave his lawyer a mighty hug. Pomeroy winced just a bit in Merton’s embrace, as if hoping it would be brief.
As they emerged from the courtroom, Stanwick told Jon, “I really thought Parker would dismiss the suit. Can’t understand why he’s going ahead with it.”
“You don’t suppose he’ll try to make a test case out of this, do you?”
“I doubt it. There’ve been others like this . . . though not with such high stakes involved. But one thing’s clear: Parker is no fan of Merton, or he would have considered him a public figure indeed. Probably he’s a secularist who may never even have heard of the man.”
During the discovery phase in the intervening weeks, Stanwick and Associates subpoenaed copies of everything Merton had ever published, as well as royalty statements from his publishers. They also learned that Merton had originally hoped for a class action suit against Jon and Newsweek for $88 million on the part of all prophecy proponents who must certainly have felt as maligned as himself. But he had found no one else to join him in the suit, except for several publicity-seeking opportunists whom Jon and Newsweek had not even named in the article.
“I’ll say this for Merton,” Jon told Stanwick. “At least he or his attorney had sense enough not to include such parasites. What did they get from us?”
“The usual record of all your publications and addresses, as we
ll as royalty statements from your publishers. Probably the biggest bill in this whole case will be the duplication costs for all your material!” “Sorry about that,” said Jon sheepishly.
“Not to worry: all that paper will probably confuse the plaintiff! Well, stay tuned. If we need anything else, we’ll get in touch with you in Cambridge. Sorry that you have to delay your trip to Israel because of this . . . unpleasantness.”
When Jon called Shannon with the news, she was, predictably, even more emphatic in her disdain of Merton. “That buffoon wants to sue you? The creep who publicly called you the Antichrist and almost got us killed in Jerusalem? Look at his track record, Jon: he predicted Jesus would return to the Mount of Olives on Easter Sunday several years ago, and he got a hundred thousand pathetic pilgrims to join him there. But Jesus pulled a no-show, of course.”
“Well, regardless of what we think, the judge didn’t throw the case out of court . . . so I won’t be joining you in Israel until this is over.” “Well, only Jews have a proper name for what Merton is trying.” “What’s that?”
“Chutzpah. ”
“Exactly: brazen insolence and—”
“No,” Shannon objected. “Chutzpah is when a man murders his father and mother, then begs the judge for leniency on the basis that he’s an orphan.”
“Perfect definition!” Jon laughed. He thought for a moment, then brightened and added, “That gives me an idea for the case, darling. Once again you’ve proven that I just can’t live without you.”
Pacing his office, he recalled his own definition of chutzpah in the case of the man who would one day become prime minister of Israel. In 1982 Ariel Sharon, then commander of the Israeli forces invading Lebanon, had orders to limit the invasion to a buffer zone twenty miles inside the Lebanese border. Instead, he defied his orders and invaded all the way into Beirut. This set the stage not only for the Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinians by Christian Phalangist militiamen, but indirectly led to the deaths of 241 American marines and 56 French paratroopers in the truck bombing of their barracks at Beirut Airport by Hezbollah terrorists. But when Time then published a story critical of Sharon, he filed a $50 million libel suit against the magazine. Now that was chutzpah!
Jon called Stanwick and suggested that they had a remarkable precedent in the Sharon lawsuit, which had ended in Time’s favor. “Excellent idea, Professor Weber,” Stanwick replied. “We’ll certainly follow it up. Meanwhile, of course, I trust you’ll not be commenting publicly on this case.”
“Certainly not.”
At the beginning of September, the case of Merton v. Weber and Newsweek, Inc., as it would be called in future textbooks, was underway at last. The stakes were high enough, quite apart from the damages specified, since once again freedom of speech and freedom of the press seemed in jeopardy. Many news magazines, wire services, and major newspapers sent reporters to the trial, as did the broadcast media. If Merton won, it looked to be a bland future for American journalism.
On the morning of September 10, at the Manhattan Supreme Court on Twenty-fifth and Madison, a court crier announced in stentorian tones, “All stand! Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All who have business in this court, the Honorable Judge Paul W. Parker presiding, now draw nigh!”
When Parker called for the plaintiff’s attorney to introduce his case, Harrison Pomeroy stood as erect as his five-foot, five-inch frame would permit. “Your Honah, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. For all its impawtence, this is not a very complicated case. In fact, it’s a simple issue of right versus wrong. Mah client, the eminent Christian churchman and scholah, the Reverend Dr. Melvin Morris Merton, has spent his lifetime doin’ what is right. No one has studied the Bible more than he. No one has bettah found in it God’s own, inspired prophecies of what will come to pass for both believahs and unbelievahs in the near future. A vast numbah of Christians have heeded those warnin’ signs and prepared themselves, and all because of what Dr. Merton has done right! ”
Pomeroy now turned from the jury and walked directly over to face Jon, who was sitting at the table for the defense with Stanwick and Kenneth Woodward. “But othahs,” Pomeroy continued, “like Professor Jonathan P. Weber here, have done wrong! In total disdain of God’s holy, inspired Word, he has not only ignored the prophecies our Lord has so generously included in Holy Scripture, but has also attacked and libeled and defamed the messengers of prophetic truth, like Dr. Merton, as ‘prophecy fanatics.’ He has called mah client a ‘false prophet,’ and thus impugned his entire ministry.”
Noticing a rising murmur in the courtroom, Pomeroy paused for effect, then continued, “As if this weren’t enough, a great national newsmagazine like Newsweek should have had more corporate sense than to publish Dr. Weber’s slandah, but publish that slandah it did, and so has aided and abetted Professor Weber in such grievous wrongdoin’. This, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, has severely compromised Dr. Merton’s reputation in the believing Christian world and led to losses in sales of his books, canceled public addresses, and acute mental distress for mah undeservin’ client. I am sure that, in utter fairness, y’all will find our claims for compensatory and punitive damages not only justified, but modest in the extreme.”
As Pomeroy sat down, a murmur of approval rose in the courtroom. Judge Parker banged his gavel in warning, then called for the defense to introduce its case. S. Fletcher Stanwick stood up, itself an act of intimidation, thought Jon, due to the man’s imposing height. After greeting judge and jury in the accepted manner, Stanwick smiled and began. “Right and wrong certainly are involved in this case, as in all others. The defense, however, respectfully submits that the wrong cited by the plaintiff’s attorney is not Newsweek’s publication of Professor Weber’s criticism of the theological position of a scholarly colleague, but that the Reverend Doctor Merton should ever have pursued this litigation in the first place.
“For reasons that he has spelled out in great detail in his book Jesus of Nazareth, my client finds many of the prophetic claims made by Dr. Merton and those who share his opinions to be extravagant and unjustified, both in their biblical context and according to all canons of theology and even common sense. He feels that untold numbers of people are being misled about how traditional Christianity regards the future, and so he felt compelled to speak out.”
After further arguments, Stanwick walked over and faced the jury directly. “Ladies and gentlemen, the spirited exchange of differing viewpoints is the very lifeblood of true inquiry and scholarship. If this free exchange is in any way muzzled for fear of litigation, then hopeless constraints will be placed on human progress, and we will have surrendered our freedoms of speech and press to a perhaps dictated and legalistic conformity.”
Jon was delighted to note a slight sprinkling of applause following Stanwick’s opening statement, although again Judge Parker’s gavel quickly terminated it.
In launching the principal phase of his case, Pomeroy seemed to take every negative syllable in Jon’s opinion of recent prophecy from his book on Jesus, his reported public comments, and the Newsweek article, and then tried to demonstrate how much these had wounded Merton. He had been portrayed as a “clown,” a “buffoon,” and a “laughingstock,” according to Pomeroy—words that were libelous if ever there were anything called libel. Jon winced at each term. He, his colleagues, and his wife had used them all in characterizing Merton . . . but only among themselves and never in public or in print, thank God!
Stanwick replied for the defense, cataloging Merton’s failed prophecy claims, particularly the Easter event at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem several years earlier, in which he had lured almost one hundred thousand people into believing that Jesus would triumphantly return in His Second Coming that very Easter. “Does this, or does this not,” Stanwick asked the jury, “demonstrate that the plaintiff is a false prophet? And yet my client was careful to state, ‘In my opinion he is a false prophet.’ People are certainly entitled to their opinions! But I, for one, would hardly have been so re
served! I would have said, ‘This proves the man is a false prophet!’” Pomeroy leaped to his feet and bellowed, “Ah object, Your Honah! Counsel is venting a terrible personal bias against mah client, and I—”
“Objection sustained,” interposed Judge Parker. “Counsel will avoid such comments in the future. You may continue.”
Stanwick now cited prominent legal precedents in which juries had thrown out suits for damages in parallel media cases, and then he concluded with a brilliant peroration on the great issue of freedom of expression. A rumble of approval heartened the defense and, of course, offended the judge and his gavel.
The principal witnesses were then sworn in and placed on the stand.
For the plaintiff, leading members of the American prophecy fraternity testified on Merton’s behalf while dropping acidulous comments about Jonathan Weber. In cross-examination, Stanwick was able to show how often Merton’s witnesses disagreed among themselves regarding “the clear prophecies of the Bible.” They were at variance as to when the Rapture would take place, the identity of the Antichrist, the nature of the Beast of Revelation . . . in short, on most of the prophecy claims.
As witnesses for the defense, Jon had conscripted a phalanx of biblical scholars who testified ardently on his behalf, some barely concealing their contempt for Merton and his claims. Adjectives like “unfounded,” “arbitrary,” “delusionary,” “fallacious,” and even “irresponsible” filled the courtroom. This consumed the rest of the day. The next morning, Merton himself took the stand and was sworn in. The very image of injured innocence, he answered Pomeroy’s questions with an obviously rehearsed precision. When his lawyer asked if he had truly suffered damage from the Newsweek article, Merton replied somberly, “Professor Weber has effectively ended my ministry.”
“Why is that?” wondered Pomeroy.
