Jessica Seinfeld Could Have Been A Whole Lot More "Deceptive" About Her Plagiarism!

Moe — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:00:00 EST

So remember Jerry Seinfeld's wife Jessica? It seems like forever ago that she published that book about how you can get kids to eat pretty much anything if you figure out how to disguise them in the midst of more appealing foods, like with pot and brownies. And indeed, it's been on the best-seller list for an eternal-esque twelve weeks. (Isn't that like, practically a year?) But if you jog that memory you may recall that somewhere between being interviewed by the New York Times and showering Oprah Winfrey with enough $600 pairs of shoes to outfit a small drag queen militia, some other cookbook writer inferred Jessica had "plagiarized" her earlier work from an eerily similar competing title The Sneaky Chef, authored by one Missy Chase Lapine. Well, today Missy finally filed the lawsuit accusing Seinfeld of copying her "revolutionary" (her words, not ours!) book's "original expression, philosophy, premise, approach, explanations, discussions, reflections, organization, methodology and overall look and feel." And shit looks pretty damn damning! So what the hell took so long?

Well, judging from passages in the lawsuit, which mostly go like this:

(d) Both the Book and the Infringing Work explain that the author is not a professional chef, just a mother who desres to have peace at the dinner table and to feed her children nutritious food. Both works discuss how the author overcame the guilt of tricking her kids into eating healthy good.

The Book states that "this method has brought peace to our family table," that "[i]n many families, the dinner table becomes a battleground and meal time is a power struggle," and that "I couldn't use logic, but I couldn't afford to give up either."

The Infringing Work states: "I just wanted a little peace around the dinner table," and continues, "I want my kids to associate food and mealtimes with happiness and conversations, not power struggles and strife." The Infringing Work acknowledges, "[W]e just want to give up."

Reading both books and comparing them side by side for an infringement lawsuit was possibly the only task more boring than cooking food for small children. Luckily, Jerry Seinfeld spices it up toward the end where Lapine's lawyers accuse him of smearing and defaming her character in an October 29 Letterman appearance:

I'm more upset that she is, you know, angry and hysterical, and because she's a three-name woman, which is what concerns me. She has thre names. And you know, if you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins...Mark David Chapman. And you know, James Earl Ray. So, that's my concern.

Ha ha ha, strong words from a man married to a woman named Jessica! Although, to be fair to any wrongfully accused assassins, wasn't Jessica Seinfeld always dismissed as "plain"?

Seinfeld, Wife Sued Over Cookbook Controversy [Smoking Gun]
Earlier: Jessicas Are All Pretty Bitches
Jessica Seinfeld's I Never Read That Book" Defense Smells A Little Fishy
Jessica Seinfeld's "Deceptively Delicious": Kinda Deceptive, Not So Delicious

Defense Contractors: If It Wasn't For Diplomatic Immunity-Protected Rape, They'd Never Get Laid

Jessica — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:00:00 EST

Jamie Leigh Jones, who will appear on 20/20 this week to discuss how she was gang-raped, imprisoned and threatened with the loss of her job while working as an administrative assistant for erstwhile Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root in Iraq two years ago, has started a foundation to help women like herself who are raped and/or harassed abroad by government contractors and others who have tricky legal status. How many women like that are there out here? Well, last January a Florida woman sued KB&R after being raped while in Iraq and under the company's employ. In a complaint we've excerpted after the jump, she contends her rapist stole a key to her apartment from a locker, which was unlocked because how else were the Halliburton boys supposed to coerce sex from their limited supply of female co-workers? She also maintains that her rapist he was so drunk he could barely stand.

(Drinking being, of course, in itself a violation of policy but a common theme running through pretty much every report of government contractor misdeeds in Iraq, especially those occurring as this did, right around the holidays.)

The Florida woman also maintains it was non-consensual sex, though Halliburton (apparently) internally determined it was consensual, while also protecting the identity of the alleged rapist from her, which is sort of doubly insulting if you think about it; not only are they alleging she consented to sex but they're alleging she consented to sex with someone she did not know.

The assailant continues to "move about freely." He has been neither reassigned nor punished in any way. Some screen shots of the plaintiff's filings against KB&R:

Earlier: "What, Don't You Always End Up In Need Of Reconstructive Surgery After A Night Of Good Consensual Sex?"

Jezebel: documents

Jessica Seinfeld Could Have Been A Whole Lot More "Deceptive" About Her Plagiarism!

Defense Contractors: If It Wasn't For Diplomatic Immunity-Protected Rape, They'd Never Get Laid