A Dallas dentist accused of fraud has been granted a temporary restraining order against Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA, Courthouse News Service reports.

The dentist, Richard Malouf, was investigated for Medicare fraud earlier this year. In the lawsuit against WFAA, Malouf said the station, as well as a local real estate reporter in Dallas, ran 40 stories about him and his home, where he is constructing a massive water park, in the past year. The lawsuit alleges the reporters of trespass, invasion of privacy, defamation, libel, slander and conspiracy.

The order bans WFAA, including investigative reporter Byron Harris, and the real estate reporter from coming within 50 feet of his residence, as well as taking any images of the property.

A Dallas dentist who has been accused of billing fraud is seeking a temporary restraining order against Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA and reporter Byron Harris, according to the station (video above).

The dentist, Dr. Richard Malouf, is accused of billing Texas taxpayers for unneeded children’s braces. In July, WFAA reported on the construction of a water park at Malouf’s home. The temporary restraining order alleges that Malouf and his family will suffer “imminent irreparable harm” if the station takes pictures of his backyard, according to WFAA. Read more

KLKN, the Lincoln, NE ABC affiliate, filed suit Monday against former reporter Melina Matthes saying she broke her contract to take a job in Omaha, reports the Lincoln Journal Star.

Matthes left KLKN in September for Omaha’s FOX affiliate, KPTM.  The Journal Star reports Citadel Communications, which owns KLKN, is looking for $55,000 in damages.  According to the article, that sum works out to, “nearly twice the annual salary KLKN paid Matthes — plus attorneys’ costs.”

Matthes began working for KLKN as a news intern and worked her way up to weekend producer and reporter before leaving for the Omaha station.

Read more

The parents of Dexter Williams, the 24-year old man who was found dead in a bathtub next to former KARK meteorologist Brett Cummins (pictured) last year, have filed a lawsuit claiming Cummins and two other men failed to prevent their son’s death.

Cummins was with Williams the night of his death in September 2011. The pair were at a house in Little Rock on the night of Williams’ death, reportedly drinking and using illegal drugs. Cummins woke up in the bathtub with Williams dead next to him the following morning.

Prosecutors have said they will not file charges in Williams’ death, which was ruled by the state crime lab to have been caused by asphyxia. Williams’ parents, however, are pursuing a lawsuit, the Associated Press reports: Read more

Former WPIX news director Karen Scott, who was fired in 2009 at the age of 60, lost her age discrimination lawsuit against the Tribune-owned station as a Manhattan federal jury ruled against her on Wednesday.

WPIX has contended that Scott was fired because of declining ratings.

In 2010, Scott filed a $4.5 million lawsuit against WPIX, claiming that the station fired or reduced the roles of older staffers, including reporter Marvin Scott and anchor Kaity Tong.

Tong, 65, who currently works as a weekend anchor at the station, took the stand in the case, telling the jury that she was “blindsided” when WPIX “dramatically” cut her salary in 2009. Read more

A Milwaukee school bus driver is suing WTMJ reporter Robert Koebel, as well as the station’s owner, Journal Communications, over an investigative report Koebel did in which he publicly confronted the driver about her prostitution past.

Earlier this year, Koebel did background checks on a bunch of Milwaukee school bus drivers and found that one, Melissa Dumas, was busted by an undercover police office several years ago and convicted on a misdemeanor prostitution charge. Koebel also found that Dumas was arrested over a decade ago on marijuana possession.

The veteran reporter, who joined WTMJ last year, then confronted Dumas in a parking lot about her past (video after the jump). Read more

An appeals court in San Francisco today ruled in favor of KPIX in the station’s long-simmering legal battle with two former reporters.

After having their age discrimination lawsuit against the CBS O&O dismissed at the beginning of last year, Bill Schechner and John Lobertini have continued to fight, but their case suffered a significant blow as the appeals court concluded that the pair of former KPIX reporters failed to show enough evidence that the station singled out their age as the reason for laying them off in 2008. Read more

Earlier this week, news broke that news director Michael Fabac had abruptly departed KXAN after five years with the Austin NBC-affiliate. Now, Austin360 reports that the station is facing a pair of lawsuits: one for racial discrimination and one for libel.

The discrimination suit was brought by meteorologist Rhonda Lee (right), who says she was let go last August after being “repeatedly subjected to crude and insensitive remarks about her race.”

The libel suit was filed by a producer of the Austin Women’s Expo over a KXAN investigative report that alleged that the expo bilked sponsors out of promised advertising opportunities. Read more

The Barry Diller-backed streaming TV service Aereo recently scored a victory in federal court when a judge dismissed one of the legal complaints filed by broadcasters against the company, The Wall Street Journal reports.

According to court documents, the judge dismissed the broadcasters’ unfair competition complaint, leaving Aereo to only face claims of copyright infringement in the case.

Although the decision was a decided victory for Aereo, the dismissed complaint represents the least significant of the claims brought against the company by broadcasters. Read more

Former WKYT reporter Jerry Sander has lost an appeal of his lawsuit against the station, Lexington’s CBS-affiliate.

Sander left the station in 2008 after it was proposed he manage a program on the station’s website that notifies viewers of school and business closings because of snow. Sander refused because he said he had no training in the program and wouldn’t “know how to even start, what button to push,” according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Sander left WKYT that day. He sued the station, claiming WKYT used that incident to terminate him for other reasons, including his age. The station maintains that he quit. The district court sided with the station in 2010. Read more