Noah Davis
Business Insider
10/26/2011
Big news from the courts: a judge ruled that there is enough evidence to bring to trial a lawsuit about the origins of the Huffington Post.
In November, Peter Daou and James Boyce filed a suit in a New York Supreme Court claiming Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer stole the idea for the Huffington Post.
The ruling by Judge Jeff Roberts states at that Daou and Boyce might have a legitimate argument that their idea was “both novel and concrete.”
At the time of the lawsuit filing, Huffington and Lerer wrote a statement to Politico claiming their innocence:
“We have now officially entered into Bizzaro World. James Boyce and Peter Daou, two political operatives who we rejected going into business with or hiring 6 years ago, and who had absolutely nothing to do with creating, running, financing, or building the Huffington Post, now concoct some scheme saying they own part of the company.”
“For months now they have been trying to extract money from us. They are filing the lawsuit of course because we did not agree to any payment.”
The Huffington Post founder will now see whether those claims hold up in court.
NOTE: Ken Lerer is an investor in Business Insider.
Lisa Belkin recently left The New York Times — where she wrote the much-loved “Motherlode” blog — for the Huffington Post, where she launched the “Parentlode” blog.
Hmmm, those sound mighty similar.
So similar, in fact, that the Times sent a cease-and-desist to the Huffington Post, WWD reports…
