BOSTON – A Massachusetts federal judge ruled that former state court judge Ernest B. Murphy can’t collect $6.8 million from the Boston Herald‘s insurance company.
Murphy demanded the payment from the insurance company after winning a libel lawsuit against the Herald and collecting $3.4 million.
Murphy was eventually reprimanded following an ethics probe about his threatening letters to Herald publisher Patrick J. Purcell. He left the bench before the reprimand through an agreement with the state’s judicial conduct commission, which declared him disabled.
On July 1, District Judge Patti Saris granted the company’s summary judgment motion in Mutual Insurance Co. Ltd. v. The Honorable Ernest B. Murphy. Mutual’s lawsuit in the U.S. Court for the District of Massachusetts sought a court order declaring it didn’t have to meet Murphy’s financial demands.
“I conclude, as a matter of law, that, because Mutual did not exercise exclusive control over the defense or settlement of the claim and the Herald never agreed to settle, Mutual did not have a duty to ‘effectuate prompt, fair, and equitable settlement’ under Massachusetts law.”
Mutual’s lawyer Joseph S. Sano, a litigation and insurance and reinsurance partner at Boston’s Prince Lobel Glovsky & Tye, said in a statement that the ruling strengthens press freedoms.
The ruling recognizes media companies’ rights to control defense and settlement under certain types of media policies “without concern that fear of bad faith liability will compel insureds or their insurers to settle defamation claims before they are reviewed under the stringent appellate standards designed to protect the press,” stated Sano.
The Herald and Murphy’s lawyers on the insurance case at Boston’s Nutter, McClennen & Fish did not return a call for comment.
Murphy collected $3.4 million, including in interest and costs, from his libel suit against the Herald, but his threatening demand letters to Purcell led to the ethics probe and eventual reprimand of Murphy.
Murphy’s libel lawsuit centered on his allegations that the newspaper erroneously published reports that he said teenage rape victim needed to “get over it.”
During settlement talks with the Herald, Murphy sent Purcell a letter on court stationary warning him that it would be a “mistake. In fact, a BIG mistake” to show the letter to anyone except “the gentleman whose authorized signature will be affixed to the check in question.”
After his first court victory against the Herald, Murphy sent Purcell a second letter stating that the publisher had “ZERO” chance of winning an appeal.
Murphy left the bench last year after the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts blessed Murphy’s deal with the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct, which declared him “permanently disabled from performing his duties.” In re: Proceedings Before the Commission on Judicial Conduct, No. SJC-10249 (Mass.)
The court later ruled that Murphy should be reprimanded and ordered to reimburse the state for the cost of running his disciplinary hearings.
Sheri Qualters can be reached at [email protected].
