Court dismisses Levitt civil libel lawsuit against Morning Sun newspaper
Mount Pleasant Attorney Todd Levitt, right, is accusing the defendants of libel and slander, false light invasion of privacy, intentional interference with business expectancy, civil conspiracy, infliction of emotional distress and reckless conduct due to a story written by Lisa Yanick-Jonaitis and published by The Morning Sun.
A lawsuit in which Mount Pleasant attorney Todd Levitt sued local newspaper the Morning Sun for libel was dismissed by a Michigan Appellate Court on Tuesday.
Levitt sued the newspaper in April 2015, seeking $1 million in damages for a story about a June 2014 defamation lawsuit regarding a parody Twitter account Levitt said portrayed him in a false light. He sued the Morning Sun, attorney Gordon Bloem and two CMU professors, alleging libel, invasion of privacy, conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Claims involving Bloem, Kenneth Sanney and James Felton, who did not participate in the appeal, remain in litigation in Isabella County.
James Felton is the father of Zachary Felton, the former CMU student whom Levitt sued over a parody Twitter account. The case was dismissed in February 2015 by Isabella County Chief Judge Paul Chamberlain, who concluded that Felton's Tweets were protected free speech because they were parody.
Attorney John Devine filed the suit maintaining that Morning Sun's community engagement editor Lisa Yanick-Jonaitis' reporting of the lawsuit Levitt filed against Felton contained defaming statements and a headline that was inaccurate.
