Breaking: The New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division has thrown out Dan Rather’s $70 million lawsuit against his former employer, CBS Corp. “We find the complaint must be dismissed in its entirety,” reads the decision. The Appellate court found that the motion court “erred in denying the defendants’ motion to dismiss the claims for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty.”
Jim Quinn, a lawyer representing CBS told The Observer‘s Felix Gillette, “We are obviously very happy. We thought this was the right decision all along.”
Rather’s lawyer Martin Gold says it’s not over for their side. “We are extremely disappointed with the Appellate Court’s decision,” Gold tells TVNewser. “We believe the decision is incorrect on a number of grounds and, accordingly, we intend to ask the New York Court of Appeals to review it.”
• Click here to read the decision from the Appellate court…
CBS STATEMENT ON THE DECISION TODAY IN THE RATHER LAWSUIT
CBS is pleased by the appellate court’s unanimous ruling today dismissing all of Dan Rather’s claims. CBS’s position on each claim was upheld, as we have said they would be for the past two years.
The court agreed with CBS that none of Mr. Rather’s causes of action state a valid claim. The court agreed that this has never been anything more than a contract dispute and that Mr. Rather did not and could not plead that there was any breach of his contract. The court unequivocally rejected Mr. Rather’s allegations of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty.
As far as the recent claims of a purported fraud which Mr. Rather filed against CBS and against Leslie Moonves and Andrew Heyward, Mr. Rather’s attorneys already said in open court that they are identical to the claims dismissed today. Based upon this unanimous decision by the appellate division, that final remnant will be dismissed as well.
This lawsuit is now effectively over. As the court unanimously concluded, “we find the complaint must be dismissed in its entirety.”