http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_31572813/defamation-suit-jonbenet-ramsey
Burke Ramsey filed a lawsuit against the film producers of the documentary of the Ramsey case.
Burke Ramsey filed a lawsuit against the film producers of the documentary of the Ramsey case.
Editor's note: This story was updated to add a judge's comment about the Ramsey case.
A $750 million defamation lawsuit by Burke Ramsey against the CBS Corporation over a 2016 documentary about the murder of his sister, JonBenet Ramsey, will go forward after a judge's ruling Friday that the complaint should not be dismissed.
Michigan 3rd Circuit Court District Judge David Groner issued a six-page ruling Friday denying a motion by CBS and other defendants in the suit asking that he toss the case out.
In a separate ruling, he also denied a defense motion asking that a separate $150 million complaint filed by Burke Ramsey against Werner Spitz, a pathologist who participated in the documentary, be dismissed.
Burke Ramsey, now 30, filed suit in December 2016 over the two-part docu-series, "The Case Of: JonBenet Ramsey," which aired in September 2016, perhaps the most talked-about television production to air around the 20-year benchmark since JonBenet Ramsey, 6, was found murdered in her family's basement in Boulder on Dec. 26, 1996.
According to Burke Ramsey's suit, "The gist of 'The Case Of: JonBenet Ramsey' is that JonBenet's brother, Burke Ramsey, killed his six-year-old sister." It went on to state, "The gist of 'The Case Of: JonBenet Ramsey' is false and defamatory per se. Burke Ramsey did not kill his sister and had no involvement in her brutal murder."
The suit named the CBS Corporation, Los Angeles-based Critical Content, as well as seven individual experts or consultants who participated in the program.
In arguing that the case should be dismissed, the defendants had pointed out that the statement that Burke Ramsey killed JonBenet "was never made in the series." It also called attention to a disclaimer that aired at both its outset and conclusion, which stated, "The opinions and conclusions of the investigators who appear on this program about how it may have occurred represent just some of a number of possible scenarios."
In Friday's ruling, Groner stated that "the statements at issue and the docu-series as a whole could reasonably be understood as stating actual facts" about Burke Ramsey. And, he stated, "This Court does not find that the 'disclaimer' at the beginning and end of the program negate the docu-series potentially defamatory meaning."
The judge's ruling references the Ramsey case as "one of the biggest unsolved mysteries to date."