Is There Justice for the World of Publishing?

On Thursday, August 28 In Middlesex Superior Court, Woburn, MA a motion alleging fraud on the court will be presented in the case of Misha Defonseca and Vera Lee vs. Jane Daniel and Mount Ivy Press. For those who have followed this blog over the last year, you know this story all too well. For those who are new here there are plenty of places you can go to read about it --- you can start at BESTSELLER! The story is this:

1. Jane Daniel met Misha Defonseca, a Millis woman who claimed to be a Holocaust survivor. Defonseca told a remarkable tale of losing her parents to Hitler's death camps and surviving by spending four years walking across Europe. Daniel was so impressed with the story that she offered to help Defonseca write the book and Daniel would publish it through her small publishing company, Mt Ivy Press. Defonseca agreed and signed a contract verifying that the story was true and had happened to her.

2. Daniel financed the writing of the book which included hiring a French-speaking ghost writer, Vera Lee, because Defonseca's English was not good.

3. Lee and Defonseca signed a contract with Daniel and collaborated on the writing of the book. The contract stipulated that: a.) the story was true, and b.) the content of the final draft would be in a form and of content acceptable to the publisher.

4. While Defonseca worked with Lee to write the book, Daniel began marketing the book which included a.) hiring a prestigious literary agency (Palmer & Dodge), b.) getting a contract with a prestigious speakers bureau for Defonseca, c.) arranging for many appearances including one on the Oprah Winfrey Show, d.) marketing the dramatic rights to the Disney Corporation

5. Quarrels arose between the two writers. Daniel was not satisfied with the form and content of the manuscript and stepped in to expedite finishing the script in order to meet contractual deadlines.

6. Lee, unhappy with Daniel's rejection of her writing, withdrew from the project and filed suit against Daniel. Subsequently lawsuits broke out all over the place and in 2001 a court awarded Lee and Defonseca a $33 million judgment against Daniel.

7. The court also awarded the copyright of the book, which Daniel financed the writing of, to Defonseca.

8. After the lawsuit Defonseca took the book that Daniel had financed to Europe and sold it to 18 other publishers and sold the movie rights to filmmaker Vera Belmont whose movie, based on the book, premiered in December 2007

9. In February 2008 Defonseca confessed that the story was a hoax, that she was not Jewish, that she had never traveled across Europe, and that the entire story was a lie.

10. Subsequently Daniel filed a complaint alleging fraud on the court on Defonseca's part because the entire lawsuit Defonseca had brought against her was based on lies and that, because she had signed a contract verifying that the story was true, the contract was void from the beginning, thus, in absence of a contract, Daniel had no obligations to Defonseca. Furthermore, Defonseca's testimony in the trial was perjured from the beginning.

Now, it doesn't take John Houseman to see that this is a simple case of contract law. Given the above facts, what will the court do? Will it refuse to overturn the case thus legitimizing Defonseca's hoax and the subsequent fraud, contract violation, and perjury? Or will it overturn the judgment after all these years and vacate the $33 million dollar judgment against Daniel?

These are questions no one in the publishing/literary world can ignore. If you read the Findings and Facts and Rulings of Law handed down at the end of the trial it is utterly and completely terrifying to those of us who are independent publishers or, in fact, publishers of any sort. The Findings of Fact, etc. is filled with so-called findings that should scare us all. Mt Ivy Press, it finds, was a “sham” company. Why? Good question. How many small presses are there in this country that would fit that description according to their definition? Daniel “misrepresented” her company's ability to promote Defonseca's book. How well would any of us be able to compare our abilities as publishers to what Daniel did?

The question is this, if an author signs a contract swearing that the story they are telling is true and then, after winning hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus the rights to the book which they also sell for hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of dollars, then admits she lied, can she get away with it?

We'll find out on August 28^th.

Thanks for reading.