Confederate Motors, Inc. v. Gawker Media LLC [1]

On May 14, 2009, Confederate Motors filed a lawsuit in federal district court against Gawker Media, Jalopnik.com, Grant Ray, and Wes Siler for statements in an article titled "Confederate Motorcycles: MotoTerminators Come to Life," published online at Jalopnik.com on April 9, 2009. The complaint sought an injunction and damages from tortious interference with business relations, negligence, libel per se, and libel per quod.

Confederate Motors is in the business of manufacturing and selling motorcycles. Gawker Media is an online media network and owns Jalopnik.com, which is described as a website for car enthusiasts. The defendant Wes Siler wrote the article in dispute and is a road-test editor and writer for the Jalopnik website. (According to the complaint, defendant Grant Ray was a former employee of Confederate Motors and a business partner of Wes Siler.)

The article at issue stated that Confederate Motor's products were unreliable and that the business was unable to do business in New York because of numerous lawsuits from disgruntled customers.

Upon Gawker's motion to dismiss, the trial court dismissed the libel per se claim (the alleged statements did not reach libel per se because they did not impute dishonesty and corruption to the plaintiff) and the negligence claim (Confederate Motors did not identify a duty owed by Gawker). The parties subsequently settled and the case was dismissed with prejudice on June 7, 2010.