Developer’s Failure to Produce Software Kills Defamation Claim

A software developer’s failure to produce the software at the heart of his defamation suit against an author and book company sunk his suit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Nov. 17.

The book suggested that immediately after 9/11, Dennis Montgomery sold the government a program that didn’t work as marketed, even though the government relied on it to ground flights during the 2003 holidays. In his suit, the district court told Montgomery to produce the program. He didn’t.

Montgomery provided virtually no evidence to show the software worked as promised and rebut the ...