A magazine publisher fires back at Tom Cruise's lawsuit, insisting they don't publish "verifiably false facts". Cruise made the headlines of Life & Style and In Touch Weekly in late July and early October after his separation from wife Katie Holmes was made public. He was accused of abandoning the couple's only child, Suri.

Cruise then launched a $50 million lawsuit against the mags' publisher Bauer Publishing, Co. in October, saying via his lawyer, "Tom doesn't go around suing people. He's not a litigious guy. But when these sleaze peddlers try to make money with disgusting lies about his relationship with his child, you bet he's going to sue."

Bauer has now filed its response to the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in California. The company said their reporting is "true or substantially true", adding the mags "do not assert verifiably false facts, and/or constitute rhetorical hyperbole or subjective statements of opinion."

Cruise's lawyer previously said that "Tom is a caring father who dearly loves Suri. She's a vital part of his life and always will be. To say he has 'abandoned' her is a vicious lie. To say it in lurid headlines with a tearful picture of Suri is reprehensible."

However, Bauer argued that the actor "cannot prove that he has suffered any compensable damage as a result of any actionable statement published by the Bauer Defendants," and that he is "a public figure and the Bauer Defendants did not act with actual malice."