Forensic Art Expert’s Libel Case Against New Yorker Magazine Is Dismissed

A federal judge in New York has dismissed a libel suit brought against The New Yorker magazine and one of its writers by Peter Paul Biro, a forensic art expert who was the subject of a long article in July 2010.

The 16,000-word article about art authentication questioned Mr. Biro’s method of matching fingerprints on paintings to the artists who created them.

In a 51-page decision released on Thursday, Judge J. Paul Oetken explained that as a public figure, Mr. Biro failed to show that the writer, David Grann, or the magazine had acted “recklessly” or “with actual malice.”

The judge’s ruling also applied to Gawker Media, Business Insider, two other Web sites and a biography of Jackson Pollock published by Yale University that wrote about the New Yorker article.

Judge Oetken had previously thrown out several parts of the original complaint in a ruling that said: “There is little question that a reader may walk away from the article with a negative impression of Biro, but that impression would be largely the result of statements of fact that Biro does not allege to be false.”

In this recent decision, the judge dismissed the rest of the complaint and focused on a review of four passages in the article that reflected negatively on Mr. Biro and his work.

Mr. Biro said through his lawyer, Richard Altman: “We intend to appeal the court’s ruling to the Second Circuit. In his decision, Judge Oetken suggested that the application of the law here was possibly unfair to Mr. Biro, but that, as a district judge, he was bound by precedent. Moreover, at oral argument, he said that he did not expect his decision to be the last word on the case. The decision raises many significant and novel issues, and we will seek further review.”

David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, said that everyone “is delighted with the wisdom and clarity of the decision.”

“David Grann is a meticulous, fair, and brilliant reporter,” he added, “and he had the support of exceptional editing and fact-checking, so I have great confidence in him and the work he published, no matter what Mr. Biro decides to do next.”