BOSTON — A federal judge Wednesday threw out a lawsuit filed by an Iraq war veteran who claimed filmmaker Michael Moore used a clip from a television interview without his permission to falsely portray him as anti-war in “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman from Middleborough, had filed an $85 million lawsuit claiming “loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation” due to his appearance in Moore’s scathing 2004 documentary criticizing the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.
Damon, 34, who lost his arms when a tire on a Black Hawk helicopter exploded while he and another reservist were servicing the aircraft, claimed that Moore never asked for his consent to use a clip from an interview he did with NBC’s “Nightly News.”
But a lawyer for Moore argued in court Wednesday that the film did not attribute any political viewpoint to Damon and did not defame him.
U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock ruled immediately and threw out the lawsuit. He said anyone watching Damon’s brief appearance in “Fahrenheit 9/11” would not believe that Damon shared the anti-war and anti-President Bush political views that Moore expresses in his film. Woodlock also agreed Moore did not defame Damon by showing a brief clip from an interview he did on NBC.
“It doesn’t seem to me to be in any way an endorsement of the thrust of what the movie was about,” Woodlock said, adding that the First Amendment gives Moore wide leeway in expressing his political opinion in his films.
Damon said he was disappointed but remained glad he filed the lawsuit.
“We took the action not only to hold Michael Moore accountable but also to clear my name and to let everyone know that I do not hold the same positions as Michael Moore on the Iraq war or on President Bush,” he said.
In the television interview, Damon was asked about a new painkiller the military was using on wounded veterans. He claimed in his lawsuit that the way Moore used the clip makes him appear to “voice a complaint about the war effort” when he was actually complaining about “the excruciating type of pain” that comes with the injury he suffered.
In the movie, Damon is shown lying on a gurney, with his wounds bandaged. He says he feels likes he’s “being crushed in a vise.”
“But they [the painkillers] do a lot to help it,” he says. “And they take a lot of the edge off of it.”
Damon is shown shortly after Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., is speaking about the Bush administration and says, “You know, they say they’re not leaving any veterans behind, but they’re leaving all kinds of veterans behind.”
Moore’s attorney, Jonathan Albano, said Damon appeared for 16 seconds out of a 130-minute film. He said his quotes were used verbatim and not manipulated to make him appear to hold an anti-war point of view.
Damon contended that Moore’s positioning of the clip just after the congressman’s comments makes him appear as if he feels like he was “left behind” by the Bush administration and the military.
