More on Vaughn v. Imus: Law and Morality

Professor Scott Moss (Colorado) offers some excellent thoughts on the lack of merit of Kia Vaughn's lawsuit against Don Imus. Scott agrees with Mike's comments that the lawsuit likely will fail, in part focusing on a point I made in comment that, despite what the Complaint alleged, Imus's statements could not reasonably be understood as pronouncing anything factual about Vaughn's chastity or character. Interestingly, Moss (a former plaintiffs' lawyer) takes Vaughn's lawyer to task for not following his ethical and professional obligations to properly counsel a client who, while sympathetic and obviously having been hurt, has not suffered the type of hurt that can be remedied by law.

Moss's column highlights this case as a good example of the often-present gap between law and morality--between what is "wrong" in a moral/ethical sense and what is (and should be) unlawful and thus remediable at law. The public is sympathetic to Vaughn and unsympathetic to Imus. Imus "wronged" Vaughn in some moral way. But that does not mean that Vaughn will or should prevail in the judicial system.

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