Health care exec sues John Oliver for defamation over toilet hygiene rant: Fk that doctor with a rusty canoe!
A health care executive has slapped “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver with a lawsuit alleging the late-night comedian twisted his words on toilet hygiene “for ratings and profits.”The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York on Friday, accuses Oliver and his show’s production company, Partially Important Productions, of defaming Dr.Brian Morley during an episode that aired last April.In the episode, titled “Medicaid,” Oliver launched into a rant aimed at Morley, a former medical director at healthcare firm AmeriHealth Caritas.“F–k that doctor with a rusty canoe! I hope he gets tetanus of the balls,” Oliver exclaimed after playing an audio recording of Morley from a 2017 testimony, which his lawyers allege was purposefully manipulated. In the audio, Morley can be heard saying: “People have bowel movements every day where they don’t completely clean themselves and we don’t fuss over [them] too much.
People are allowed to be dirty…You know, I would allow him to be a little dirty for a couple of days.”Members of the audience gasped after Oliver rolled the clip.But Morley’s lawyers argued the audio was altered to take out necessary context, like the sentences before and after the clip, and made viewers believe the doctor was speaking about an immobile patient when he was discussing a completely different individual. “Oliver’s feigned outrage at Dr.Morley was fabricated for ratings and profits at the expense of Dr.
Morley’s reputation and personal well-being,” the lawsuit said.In the full audio segment, according to the suit, Morley said: “In certain cases, yes, with the patient with significant comorbidities, you would want to have someone wiping them and getting the feces off.But like I said, people have bowel movements every day where they don’t completely clean themselves and we don’t fuss over too much.”“It’s when the dirty and the feces and the urine interfere with, you know, medical safety, like...