Casey Anthony hearing: No ruling yet on punitive damages in civil suit - OS

Casey Anthony hearing: No ruling yet on punitive damages in civil suit

4:35 p.m. EST, November 7, 2012
By Jeff Weiner, Orlando Sentinel

Attorneys for Casey Anthony were back in court on Wednesday in an attempt to limit the damages she could be ordered to pay in the defamation lawsuit set for trial early next year.

After a half-hour hearing, Circuit Judge Lisa Munyon did not rule on whether Zenaida Gonzalez should be able to pursue punitive damages. The judge plans to issue a written ruling later.

Gonzalez says her life was upended after Anthony said a similarly named nanny had kidnapped her daughter, 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, in 2008.

Detectives discovered the nanny didn't exist, and the girl was dead.

Gonzalez's attorneys were already granted permission to pursue punitive damages — basically, an additional penalty meant to punish Anthony and discourage similar conduct in the future — by a prior judge in the suit, but Anthony's lawyer Charles Greene argued the case has "dramatically changed" since then.

The reason: A ruling by the judge in April, which threw out part of Gonzalez's defamation case. Greene argued that what remains isn't enough to show Anthony acted with "deliberate and malicious" intent or a "wanton disregard" for the truth.

"I beseech you, judge to throw out the punitive damages and make this case about what it's really about," Greene said, the alleged damage to Gonzalez and not "the character of Casey Anthony."

Gonzalez attorney John Dill countered there was no reason for Munyon to go against the prior judge's ruling. Dill said Anthony's behavior shows "evidence of bad faith," and evidence suggests her lies were deliberate and damaging.

Anthony, he argued, lied when she suggested to her mother Cindy Anthony that she hadn't ruled out Gonzalez as a suspect in Caylee's disappearance, information which Cindy relayed to the media.

"The only evidence in this case is that that was a false statement," he said, adding "we believe this motion should be denied at this point in time."

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-11-07/news/os-casey-anthony-zenaida-gonzalez-punitive-20121107_1_zenaida-gonzalez-cindy-anthony-circuit-judge-lisa-munyon