“The republication of In the Spirit of Crazy Horse marks a great victory against a new kind of censorship,” New York attorney Martin Garbus wrote in the afterword to the book’s 1991 edition. Garbus, who defended Matthiessen and Viking Press, explains that libel suits filed by Price and by former South Dakota governor William Janklow in three states kept Matthiessen’s book from being sold for seven years. In addition to filing the lawsuit, Price, the FBI, and Janklow called and threatened book buyers and bookstores to intimidate them away from distributing Crazy Horse.

Garbus’s account of the legal fight details the toll a harassment lawsuit can take, even if it does not win. Matthiessen and Viking Press had to expend considerable resources to defeat the suits. Matthiessen was subject to invasive interrogation and legal discovery and investigation for two years. In the end, the courts had to decide whether or not it is libelous to report on unproven charges or countercharges in a public controversy. The courts ultimately rejected Price and Janklow’s claim that the book was libelous because Matthiessen quoted so-called “disreputable” sources, such as AIM members, their sympathizers, and leftists, as opposed to “responsible sources” like members of Congress and the New York Times.  
 
Gelfand suit
The Socialist Workers Party has defended itself previously from harassment lawsuits. In 1979, Alan Gelfand, a lawyer employed at the time by Los Angeles County, sued claiming his constitutional rights were violated because the SWP was run by FBI agents who engineered his expulsion from the party. Gelfand asked the court to remove the party’s leadership.

“The suit has been prepared, organized, and financed by an antilabor group known as the Workers League, with which Gelfand is associated,” the Militant explained at the time.

With wild conspiracy allegations at its center, the case went on for 10 years until federal judge Mariana Pfaelzer finally dismissed it in August 1989. The SWP was awarded some of its costs. In a separate out-of-court settlement, Gelfand’s previous attorneys were forced to pay some of the legal costs the SWP incurred in defending itself in the case.

The SWP mounted a public campaign against the suit reaching out broadly to the labor movement and to defenders of workers rights for support. Through the efforts of the Political Rights Defense Fund, which adopted the case, thousands and thousands of dollars were raised to cover the legal expenses.

In her final ruling, Pfaelzer stated that “there is no evidence” to back Gelfand’s charges and that his motivation in bringing the suit was to “disrupt the SWP.”

“Gelfand,” the judge continued, did not “have any substantial basis in fact for any of his allegations, nor did he have a good faith belief that the allegations were true.”

The judge concluded that years of “pretrial discovering” that she had allowed, which included hours of sworn depositions from SWP members and supporters with questions by attorneys paid by the Workers League, were “abusive, harassing, and in large part directed to matters which could have no probative value in this litigations. The discovery was not conducted for the purpose of discovering evidence in support of plaintiff’s claims; one of its main purposes was to generate material for political attacks on the SWP by the Workers League.”

The judge went on to lament, “I made a bad mistake during the trial. I should have granted the defendants motion for summary judgment six years ago.”

She later told the SWP’s attorney that the case was “painful, because it cost your client so much money. All the trips [back and forth to Los Angeles] for legal hearings were a drain on the party’s treasury.”
 
 
Related articles:
‘Militant,’ SWP file motion to dismiss harassment suit by Utah mine bosses
Defend the ‘Militant,’ SWP!
‘Militant’ answers defamation lawsuit
Legal brief by socialist weekly, SWP backing motion to dismiss Kingston suit
 
 
 
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