A federal investigator’s libel lawsuit based on statements in a book on Scruggs-gate is over before it got out of the starting gate. NMC reported over the weekend on the dismissal of Hal Neilson’s libel lawsuit against Tom Dawson and Alan Lange based on statements that appeared in their book Kings of Tort. Here is NMC’s December post about the lawsuit.

It looks like Neilson threw in the towel. Neilson never served the defendants with process and did not respond to Lange and Dawson’s motion to dismiss.

The rules of civil procedure give a plaintiff 4 months (120 days) to serve a defendant with process. In most cases, it is not hard to serve process. You’ve got to believe that Lange and Dawson would be easy to get served. They make public appearances all the time and their residences would be easy for a process server to find.

Tim’s comment on NMC theorizes:

This was not a serious attempt at litigation but filed to stop the SOL [statute of limitations] from running then think about it. I would bet good $$ that Christie filed to stop SOL and told Hal to get another attorney if he wished to pursue and he either did not or could not. Agree with Tom let sleeping dogs lie.

That makes sense.

To me, Neilson’s appearance in Kings of Tort was not significant. It’s been a while since I read the book; I don’t remember what it said about Neilson.

In any event, this was a big win for Lange and Dawson.