The Region - News from May 1, 1987

Calling it a “meritless, retaliatory action,” a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has dismissed a $10-million lawsuit filed by former San Diego City Councilman Michael Schaefer against the Los Angeles law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher that claimed its lawyers had defamed him by calling him “not just any slumlord (but) the worst.” Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, the city’s largest law firm, were representing 150 of Schaefer’s tenants in a lawsuit in April, 1986, when Schaefer claimed they made a number of defamatory statements about him to news reporters. Schaefer was ordered to pay $1.83 million in damages to those tenants. In dismissing Schaefer’s suit against the firm, Judge Kurt J. Lewin said it appeared to have been filed in a “fit of pique or anger.”