Keith Olbermann, the whiney, deranged former MSNBC anchor has settled a lawsuit he had filed against his former employer Current TV, taking home far less than he had been asking for.
According to the New York Post, Olbermann and attorneys representing the former owners of Current TV, which was sold to the Qatari-government-owned Al Jazeera network earlier this year, reached a deal to give him a $5 million payout instead of the $50 million he had sued for.
The lawsuit was a classic example of a liberal-on-liberal fight with Olbermann pitting himself against former U.S. vice president Al Gore and could have gone on for years according to the Post's Michael Shain:
Current claimed the big-ego anchor had “sabotaged” the struggling new network by refusing to work with people there and not showing up for work. [...]
Papers filed by Olbermann’s lawyers — which were making the rounds of media Web sites all year — offered a rare (and sometimes hilarious) glimpse into the workings of a new news network
“Keith Olbermann was disheartened to discover Al Gore, Joel Hyatt and the management of Current are no more than dilettantes portraying entertainment executives,” the papers claimed.
Current, which quickly counter-sued, and the ex-anchor were locked in a legal stalemate that might have lasted years if not for Gore’s startling decision last December to sell the money-losing Current to Al Jazeera.
Olbermann’s settlement will come out of the seller’s end of the Current deal — meaning Gore and Hyatt, who each pocketed a reported $100 million, will have to pay.
While we're always glad to see another lawsuit not clogging the courts up, this one sure would have been entertaining had it been allowed to continue. Of course, there's always the next time Keith Olbermann gets fired.
