A U.S.-based publishing company says it is dropping at least one of its lawsuits against a McMaster librarian after scholars across North America came to his defense.
Edwin Mellen Press (EMP) had filed two lawsuits against Dale Askey and McMaster University, claiming a total of $4.5 million in damages.
Edwin Mellen PressIn the first filing, submitted in June of last year, the company alleged that statements Askey made in a Sept. 2010 blog post, while he was working at a Kansas university, were both “false” and “defamatory in its tone and context.”
But wait…
Even though good news has arrived in the particular case of Dale Askey, listeners should still write to your local Canadian diplomatic office against the libel laws having such a different standard in Canada and how the potential threat of a lawsuit while visiting Canada is a chilling matter. Just because the threat to Dale Askey is finished for now does not mean the mechanisms are gone to menace somebody else.
Not finished
Mellen had two parallel suits. The one citing Askey and McMaster has been dropped, but there is still an additional suit aimed only at Askey that has not been dropped yet.