Elisabeth Hasselbeck's Plagiarism Case Ends
Plaintiff's lawyer didn't file necessary paperwork.
If you don't know about celiac disease, Elisabeth Hasselbeck will tell you. The gluten allergy is the subject of her bestselling book The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide. Hasselbeck is known to have suffered with the disease, but it's come out that she did not originate much of the material that's in her book.
Another author, Susan Hassett, alleges she considerately sent Hasselbeck a copy of her own book about celiac disease in 2008 when she learned that Hasselbeck was a victim of celiac. Not a year later Hasselbeck came out with her own version of the diet, and her high profile on The View helped the book climb high on mulitple bestseller lists. But when the book landed in Hassett's hands, she found too many similiarities between her book and Hasselbeck's to let the issue sift itself out.
Hassett slammed Hasselbeck with a lawsuit, and indeed the judge found that there are very particular concepts and phrasings that appear throughout both books. And get this: Hasselbeck likely would have been found guilty of the plagiarism charges, except Hassett's judge screwed up and didn't file important paperwork on time.
Hasselbeck may live without flour, but she sure lucked out with a sweet deal here. We reported recently that she's coming out with her own clothing line -- will she be originating, or will she use designs significantly similar to other pros? Is a plagiarism case as embarrassing as sending a photo of your breast to your in-laws? Ummm....yeah.
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