In 1944, Sidis won a settlement from "The New Yorker" for an article published in 1937. He had alleged it contained many false statements. Under the title "Where Are They Now?", James Thurber pseudonymously described Sidis's life as lonely, in a "hall bedroom in Boston's shabby South End". Lower courts had dismissed Sidis as a public figure with no right to challenge personal publicity. He lost an appeal of an invasion of privacy lawsuit at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1940 over the same article. Judge Charles Edward Clark expressed sympathy for Sidis, who claimed that the publication had exposed him to "public scorn, ridicule, and contempt" and caused him "grievous mental anguish humiliation," but found that the court was not disposed to "afford to all the intimate details of private life an absolute immunity from the prying of the press".