Rosie Wants $8M Legal Fees
Rosie O'Donnell said she will try to recover $8 million in legal fees from her battle with the publisher of her now-defunct magazine, now that a judge indicated neither side will win any money.
But an attorney for publisher Gruner + Jahr USA cautioned Thursday that the fight wasn't over. "The judge hasn't made any final ruling," Martin Hyman said on NBC.
Each side blamed the other for the 2002 demise of Rosie magazine, and each sought nine-figure damage awards in their civil lawsuits — a tussle that state Supreme Court Justice Ira Gammerman called "ill-conceived."
"It seems to me that neither side has proved any damages," Gammerman said Wednesday after lawyers for G+J and the former television host rested their cases following a two-week non-jury trial.
Gammerman's comments from the bench did not constitute an official verdict and were not legally binding, although he offered no indication to either side that he would reverse his opinion. He did leave open the possibility that O'Donnell could ask for Gruner+Jahr to cover her legal fees.
Outside court Wednesday, O'Donnell declared: "I'm very happy that it's over."
"The story of this case is not who won or lost, but how many times peace was offered and war was chosen by the other side," she said.
Later, outside the Broadway theater where her musical "Taboo," starring 1980s pop star Boy George, opens Thursday, O'Donnell said she was upset about wasting so much money on legal fees.
O'Donnell's lawyer, Lorna Schofield, told NBC she was "working very hard" to recover the money.
Hyman said he disagreed that the publisher's case lacked merit, repeating assertions that the magazine shutdown cost G+J tens of millions of dollars.
"What the judge said was that he did not think that either party could prove damages to his satisfaction in view of the fact that the magazine had never been profitable. That's what he said and we will address that issue as we go down the road," he said.
Rosie, a magazine reminiscent of Oprah Winfrey's successful publication, O, debuted amid much optimism two years ago, but a bitter battle for editorial control ensued in late summer 2002, as Rosie's sales declined.
O'Donnell quit "Rosie" magazine in mid-September 2002, and the magazine, which began publishing in April 2001, folded with the December 2002 issue.
The publishers sued O'Donnell for $100 million, alleging breach of contract for walking away. She countersued for $125 million, saying G+J broke its contract with her by cutting her out of key editorial decisions.
But Gammerman concluded: "There's no evidence that the magazine would have made any money at all."
Among the bitter testimony in the case was testimony by Cindy Spengler, a cancer survivor on the Rosie staff, who said O'Donnell suggested she was lying about goings-on at the magazine and told her liars get cancer. Outside court, O'Donnell said she had called Spengler the next morning and apologized for the cancer comment.
In another moment that raised eyebrows, the chief financial officer of G+J USA admitted that he recommended manipulating the magazine's financial performance in order to keep O'Donnell on board.