Judith Regan Suing HarperCollins

Posted on December 19, 2006

Fired publisher Judith Regan is going to sue HarperCollins for libel, among other things, according to her powerhouse Los Angeles attorney Bert Fields. (You know Bert, he's the guy that has helped Tom Cruise win every lawsuit he's ever filed.) Meanwhile, HarperCollins said that Regan made anti-Semitic remarks which prompted the firing. She denies she made anti-Semitic comments.

With Judith Regan's authors still reeling from their publisher's abrupt dismissal, the sparring between the headline-making Ms. Regan and her former employer, the News Corporation, grew more intense, more personal and more specific on Monday over accusations that she had made anti-Semitic comments that prompted her firing. The News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, released what it described as notes of a heated telephone conversation on Friday between Ms. Regan and Mark Jackson, a lawyer for HarperCollins, the corporation�s publishing division that includes the ReganBooks imprint.
According to the notes, Ms. Regan protested that the publishing house had not supported her during a firestorm last month over a confessional book by O. J. Simpson and a related television program, which the News Corporation canceled after public protests and growing unease among affiliate television stations. "'Of all people, the Jews should know about ganging up, finding common enemies and telling the big lie,'" Ms. Regan said, according to the notes Mr. Jackson made as the conversation unfolded; the notes were provided by Gary Ginsberg, an executive vice president of News Corporation.
According to the notes, Ms. Regan then said that the literary agent Esther Newberg; HarperCollins� executive editor, David Hirshey; HarperCollins� president, Jane Friedman; and Mr. Jackson �constitute a Jewish cabal against her." A lawyer for Ms. Regan, Bert Fields, denied Monday that she had said there was a "Jewish cabal against her," saying that she had used only the word "cabal" in the conversation, and that was done in response to Mr. Jackson's using the word in a question to her. But Mr. Fields acknowledged that during the heated conversation by phone last Friday, she had made some version of the first statement, drawing attention to the fact that her boss and others involved in the controversy over the aborted O. J. Simpson project were Jewish.
He denied, though, that this reflected any anti-Semitism. "There is nothing insulting to Jewish people in saying that Jews should particularly understand what it is to be victims of the big lie," Mr. Fields said. "They were looking for an excuse to fire her, and they fired her, and called it anti-Semitic. It ain't anti-Semitic."

Bert Fields says HarperCollins breached its contract with Regan by firing her. Fields, by the way, is Jewish, as he was quick to point out to the Times.