Art Defamation Suit
September 26th, 2007 by FineArtRegistry
GET ALONG, LITTLE DOGIES
The Montana Supreme Court Wrangles Down an Art Defamation Suit; Fraudulent Art Owner and his Lawyers Must Pay An Honest Art Authenticator Over $10 Million In Damages
In March 2007, art authenticator Steven Seltzer, the foremost expert on the authentication of his grandfather Olaf C. Seltzer’s work, was vindicated by the Montana Supreme Court. Seltzer issued his honest assessment that a watercolor drawing of two cowboys lassoing a steer on the plains of the American West was not, as claimed by painting owner Steve Morton, the high-priced work of Charles M. Russell, but rather the equally aesthetically pleasing, though considerably less monetarily valuable, work of another western artist, Olaf C. Seltzer. Morton had taken offense, and sued Seltzer for product defamation, claiming his assessment diminished the value of the painting.
In the last twenty years, there has been an increase in the number of people filing lawsuits attempting to extend the common law tort of product disparagement to the field of art, arguing that if someone falsely claims an artwork is not an original by a high-money artist, that the person making the claim can be sued for Art Disparagement. Art authenticators, museums, galleries, and universities are in an uproar, frightened to issue honest, well-supported opinions lest they get sued. But no one has ever actually won such a suit. In this case, Seltzer was awarded millions of dollars in damages for suffering through Morton’s false allegations.
In this article, attorney and Fine Art Registry™ legal analyst Cindy Hill walks you step-by-step through Morton’s suit against Steven Seltzer, explaining the arguments which were made about art product disparagement, and why these arguments failed. Learn the standards courts apply when they look at the opinion issued by an art authenticator regarding a painting’s origins, and learn why, so far, no one has succeeded in winning a judgment against a duly qualified art expert or authenticator who has issued a well-founded, reasonably researched, honestly supported opinion regarding the authenticity of an artwork.
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