Sunda Croonquist said the dismissal of the lawsuit is a victory for all comedians. (www.sundalive.com)

A New Jersey judge has stepped in to protect mother-in-law jokes after a standup comedian was sued by her in-laws.

Sunda Croonquist was sued by her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law over her schtick, which involves making jokes about their heritage and her own.

U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper threw the suit out of court in a 21-page ruling Friday, saying Croonquist's jokes are statements of opinion and not fact and therefore protected by the First Amendment, which ensures freedom of speech.

The Beverly Hills, Calif.-based comedian's stand-up includes a description of herself as a half-black, half-Swedish woman who marries into a Jewish family.

"One line is that I said that when I met my mother-in-law for the first time, I realized that Jews can't whisper, 'cause I met her and I said, 'It's such a pleasure meeting you,' and she said, 'Have a seat, Eliot put my pocketbook away,'" Croonquist said.

In one line of patter, she describes her sister-in-law's voice as "like a cat in heat."

The judge said the cat-in-heat joke was "colourful, figurative rhetoric that reasonable minds would not take to be factual."

Croonquist said she felt "betrayed" when her in-laws filed suit last April.

In a move guaranteed to cause dissension in the family, she was defended by her husband's law firm.

Croonquist said she would continue to make in-law jokes and called the ruling a victory for all comedians.

"Can you imagine, Rodney Dangerfield not being able to make a mother-in-law joke," she said. "I was petrified. Suppose I lost, there would be no mother-in-law jokes."

Croonquist is appearing at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood on Saturday night.

With files from The Associated Press