A judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit today against a professor at the University of California at Irvine on the grounds that the plaintiff — a South Korean researcher — had filed the suit only to harass the defendant.

The case stemmed from a commentary last winter in OB-GYN News by Bruce L. Flamm, an obstetrician-gynecologist and a volunteer clinical professor at Irvine, in which he criticized a controversial 2001 study about the alleged medical power of prayer. In the study, Kwang Y. Cha, a South Korean fertility specialist, and two other authors reported that when people prayed for women undergoing in vitro fertilization, the patients’ chances of getting pregnant increased, even though they were unaware of the prayers.

The commentary assailed the validity of the study, called for its retraction, and noted that one of its authors had gone to jail for fraud and another had disowned the paper. The commentary also noted that Dr. Cha had subsequently been accused of plagiarism.

Dr. Cha sued Dr. Flamm, asserting that the commentary amounted to defamation and was part of “a bitter personal vendetta.” Dr. Flamm sought to have the case dismissed under a California statute designed to protect against lawsuits intended only to harass people who were airing legitimate public criticism.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge, James Dunn, agreed with Dr. Flamm and threw out the case, saying that there was no merit to the lawsuit. “It’s a victory for scientific peer review and a victory for academic freedom,” Dr. Flamm said.

Dr. Cha has 60 days to decide whether to appeal the judge’s decision. —Dan Carnevale