Much like the “memoirist” James Frey before him, Lance Armstrong and his book of lies is officially protected under the first amendment. A judge recently sides with Armstrong after a class-action lawsuit was brought against him by his readers. They claimed that his memoir was filled with lies and that they felt duped by the cyclist in his autobiographies and various other books.
A group of readers had filed suit against Armstrong in January, seeking more than $5 million in refunds and other costs for Armstrong’s books, including his autobiographies It’s Not About The Bike and Every Second Counts.
Unfortunately for those who felt they deserved compensation for the shamed athlete taking advantage of them with his words, U.S. District Judge Morrison England ruled that Armstrong’s right to free speech trumped the accusations in the case, which asked for more than $5 million in damages.
“The Court concludes, despite plaintiffs’ allegations that the Armstrong books contained false and misleading statements, that the content of the books is afforded full First Amendment protection,” England wrote.
All the books Armstrong wrote and published claimed that he never took performance-enhancing drugs while winning Tour de France all seven times. He claimed that he was able to win the event repeatedly, not from doping, but through training and hard work.
Armstrong had won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times between 1999 and 2005. It was later revealed that he had been taking performance enhancing drugs for the races called “doping.” He has since been disqualified from those races and banned from competitive cycling for life for doping offenses by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in 2012. He also had his 7 medals revoked.
