Liskula Cohen's Courtroom Battles Continue
Liskula Cohen won her case last week to force Google to reveal the identity of the person who had set up a blog to call the ex-model a "skank" and "ho." And although Cohen initially responded to the news by filing a $3 million defamation lawsuit against the blogger involved, Rosemary Port, she later decided against pursuing the case, saying she was all "about forgiveness" and just wished Port "happiness." (For her part, Port now says she plans to sue Google for $15 million for outing her.) So you may be assuming Cohen can now focus her attention on non-legal matters, right? Not so much. Cohen has another lawsuit pending in State Supreme Court. And, coincidentally, a judge issued a ruling in that case last week, as well.
In 2007, Cohen was partying at the club Ultra on West 26th Street with two friends when she was attacked by a man who threw a glass bottle at her head, an incident that required her to receive 46 stitches at the hospital and, she says, resulted in injuries that severely damaged her modeling prospects.
The man involved in the incident, Samir Dervisevic, was arrested outside the club. And Cohen later filed a lawsuit against Dervisevic, who, it turns out, has a history of acting out violently at clubs. But she also filed suit against Ultra and the club's owner/manager, charging them with negligence and accusing them of failing to prevent the attack from happening in the first place.
Last week, a judge dismissed the case against the manager, who hadn't even been present to witness the attack; Cohen's charge that the club had violated the Dram Shop Act, a law that makes bars and clubs responsible in cases where they serve alcohol to visibly intoxicated patrons, was tossed as well. (Dervisevic had been drinking from bottles of liquor that had been ordered by bottle-service customers; in what may be a legal first, the judge ruled that while a club can control drunk patrons when they order drinks from a bar, bottle service is a different story.)
The judge ruled that the case against Ultra and Dervisevic, however, can go ahead, which means Cohen's quest for courtroom justice continues. The judge's ruling from last week is below.