'Freakonomics' Author and HarperCollins Sued for Defamation

Bloomberg
Apr. 13, 2006

Good for John Lott, Freakonomics is a manipulative piece of trash.April 11 (Bloomberg) -- ``Freakonomics'' co-author Steven Levitt and HarperCollins Publishers Inc. were sued for defamation by former Yale Law School researcher John Lott, whose work Levitt discusses in the best-selling book.

Lott said in a federal lawsuit filed yesterday in Chicago that Levitt, a University of Chicago economist, defamed him when he wrote that other scholars have been unable to replicate Lott's research linking lower crime rates with the right to carry guns. The passage amounts to an allegation that Lott falsified his results, according to the suit.

The allegation ``damages Lott's reputation in the eyes of the academic community in which he works, and in the minds of the hundreds of thousands of academics, college students, graduate students, and members of the general public who read `Freakonomics,''' Lott said in the lawsuit.

Lott's suit asks for a halt in sales, a retraction in the next printing of the book and unspecified damages from Levitt and HarperCollins. Stephen Dubner, who co-wrote the book, wasn't named as a defendant.

Representatives of Levitt and New York-based HarperCollins, owned by News Corp., didn't immediately return voicemail messages.

``Freakonomics'' has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 51 weeks and, according to the lawsuit, has sold more than 1 million copies.

Lott has held jobs at the University of Chicago, as well as Stanford University, UCLA, Rice University and the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently, he was a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a public-policy research group in Washington.

The case is Lott v. Levitt, 06-CV-2007, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).