After lengthy journeys through multiple courts, Boston founder Tom Scholz's defamation lawsuits against his late bandmate's ex-wife and the Boston Herald came to an end in the U.S. Supreme Court June 6.
The two suits were related to an article published in the Herald discussing the suicide of Boston singer Brad Delp. In the article, Micki Delp, the singer's ex-wife, and others discussed the bandmates' relationship, connecting it with the suicide in a way that the rocker said dramatically worsened his life.
"I felt like a disgrace and a hoax," Scholz said in a court record. "I did not want to leave my house. I suddenly noticed people staring at me in an odd way and avoiding me altogether."
Scholz filed suit against Micki in 2007 and the Herald in 2010. He claimed there was indisputable evidence Brad's suicide was mainly due to his relationship with his fiancée, not Scholz.
The claim against Delp was dismissed in a lower court but found a second wind in an appeals court before being dismissed again by Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2015. The suit against the Herald was dismissed in a lower court and that decision was upheld by the SJC in 2015.
Both cases came before the Supreme Court, where the body declined to reopen the matter, bringing the story to a close.
"Mr. Scholz disagrees that the cause of Brad's suicide is unknowable," a statement on behalf of Scholz said. "This decision will have adverse consequences well beyond [this] case against the Herald because it regrettably means that people are largely free to accuse another of causing someone's suicide, even when, as here, the accusation is false."
Another defamation suit against former Boston guitarist Barry Goudreau's wife Connie was settled previously.