Bindrim v. Mitchell
Court of Appeal of California for the Second District
92 Cal.App.3d 61 (1979)
Dr. Paul Bindrim (plaintiff), a psychologist who ran nude group-therapy sessions, allowed novelist Gwen Davis Mitchell (defendant) to attend a session after she claimed she was there only for therapy. Mitchell then wrote and, with publisher Doubleday, published a novel featuring a similar nude-therapy doctor under a different name and appearance, but with enough similarities that several people who read the book identified the character as Bindrim. Bindrim sued for libel, and the jury found for him, though the court conditioned a new trial on his accepting a reduced damages award. Both sides appealed.
Whether a fictional character based on a real person can be libelous even when the character's name and appearance in the book differ from the real person's, if a reasonable reader would understand the character to be that real person.