Expected but troubling

Knucklehead author James Frey is being sued. By a Michigan woman who bought his book.

More trouble is brewing for Michiana native James Frey who is said to have embellished parts of his best-selling memoir.

Million Little Pieces was the top-selling non-fiction book of 2005 and is based on the life of the graduate of St. Joseph High School in Michigan.

Thursday, a Chicago woman filed a lawsuit against Frey and his publisher, accusing them of consumer fraud.

She says she read the book after hearing about it on The Oprah Winfrey Show and was emotionally moved.

But now, she says she feels cheated, since learning parts of the book aren't true.

I'm certain more such lawsuits will follow. Professor Bainbridge is surprised that Oprah Winfrey hasn't been sued yet. After all it was her talk show that promoted Mr. Frey's book.(Ms. Winfrey still defends that decision and Mr. Frey)

Where this all may leading is what is troubling. A Class Action lawsuit has already been filed against Frey and his publisher Random House. Ted Frank at Overlawyered prophesied this back on January 12th.

The question is what will a court do when confronted with the inevitable free-riding class action, claiming that the publisher has committed consumer fraud, and demanding the right for every book owner to get a full refund and punitive damages (and, of course, a taste for the attorneys who took the entrepreneurial risk of typing up a summary of The Smoking Gun story and filing it in court), before settling for 50-cent coupons, a donation of remaindered books to a "Books for Addicts" program, and a multi-million-dollar attorney fee. Will there be a ruling that "non-fiction" memoirs that aren't require labelling? If so, what are the First Amendment implications for other non-fiction books? A ruling that doesn't provide a clear swath of protection for publishers could essentially abolish memoirs or first-person reporting, because a ruling that establishes any sort of rule calling Frey's book consumer fraud (or even just potentially actionable consumer fraud) could encourage other attempts to sue other successful memoir-publishers for less egregious exaggerations.

What Ted is saying is far from being a long shot. I've blogged about the ridiculous class action suits that happen every day. Mr. Frey's fraud could have far reaching implications and I'm a big reader of non-fiction. Time will only tell what damage Frey and Winfrey will cause. The talk show host if she was wise would retract her previous statements. Unfortunately the damage may be too late to be repaired.

Open Post- Adam's Blog, Right Wing Nation, TMH's Bacon Bits, Third World County,