Janet Malcolm - Masson Case

Masson Case

Articles published in The New Yorker, and in Malcolm's subsequent book In The Freud Archives, triggered a $10 million legal challenge by psychoanalyst Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, former project director for the Freud Archives. In his 1984 lawsuit, Masson claimed that Malcolm had libelled him by fabricating quotations attributed to him; these quotes, Masson contended, had brought him into disrepute.

Malcolm claimed that Masson had called himself an "intellectual gigolo", and that he had slept with over 1000 women. She also claimed that he said he wanted to turn the Freud estate into a haven of "sex, women and fun"; and claimed that he was, "after Freud, the greatest analyst that ever lived." Malcolm was unable to produce all the disputed material on tape. The case was partially adjudicated before the Supreme Court, which held, against Malcolm, that the case could go forward for trial by jury. After a decade of proceedings, a jury finally found against Masson in 1994 on the grounds that, whether or not the quotations were genuine, more evidence was needed to rule against Malcolm. (For the opinion of the Supreme Court that allowed the case to proceed to trial, see the opinion at Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc. (89-1799), 501 U.S. 496 (1991))

In August, 1995, Malcolm claimed to have discovered a misplaced notebook containing three of the disputed quotes. As reported in The New York Times the author "declared in an affidavit under penalty of perjury that the notes were genuine."