The Hollywood Reporter said that filmmaker Lauren Greenfield has won the lawsuit filed against her by David Siegel over the documentary series "The Queen of Versailles." Siegel, whose company Westgate Resorts, claimed that the film's focus on the issue that he received commission for the $75 million Florida mansion before the financial crisis and the press release of the film at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival about him and his socialite wife were defamatory.
Siegel, who is selling the mammoth-sized mansion, wasn't happy with how the film portrayed him and his wife. THR said the film's press release depicted them as, "(A) timeshare tycoon and his socialite wife (being) forced to sell off the unfinished property or face economic truth," and "(A) rags-to-riches-to-rags story."
An arbitrator at the Independent Film and Television Alliance declared that Spiegel's claims about the film were unfounded. He said, "There is nothing taken away by the viewer of the Motion Picture that is inconsistent with the fundamental reality that the global recession created a crisis for Westgate causing it to have to reluctantly give up its interest in PH Towers. To a great extent this is derived from the words of David, Jackie, and Richard Siegel themselves. Perhaps the clearest example of this is David referring to the story being told as a 'rags-to-riches-to-rags story.'"
The arbitrator said that Spiegel's argument has failed to depict how the film has damaged him and his co-plaintiffs, and that the Spiegel's company failed in its attempt to establish the type of malice the law requires for a defamation claim on behalf of a public figure.
On the other hand, THR said Greenfield was not able to secure over $1 million in attorney fees as the arbitrator deemed it unreasonable and that the defendants had used unscrupulous tactics to obtain the fees they have demanded. Instead, Spiegel's Westgate was ordered to pay only $750,00 in legal fees to the defendants.
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