Judge Says Websites Must Face Defamation Lawsuit For Calling Climate Scientist A ‘Fraud’ [View all]

[Gothmog]

I love the fact that Dr. Michael Mann is suing some climate deniers. The climate deniers have been operating on the assumption that no scientist would dare sue them for their lies and that no scientist would dare submit himself to discovery. Professor Mann is doing a great job of suing a couple of climate denier websites and his lawsuit survived the motion to dismiss and an anti-SLAP claim http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/24/3205111/mann-defamation-lawsuit/

A judge for the D.C. Superior Court on Thursday refused to let libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and conservative news site National Review off the hook from a defamation lawsuit brought by climatologist Michael Mann, saying the sites’ musings about the accuracy of Mann’s research may not be protected by the First Amendment.

Mann had sued the outlets in 2012, claiming they published defamatory articles accusing him of academic fraud and comparing him to a convicted child molester, former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Specifically, Mann alleged that CEI published — and then National Review republished — an article calling Mann “the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet.”

Judge Frederick H. Weisberg on Thursday ruled that while “opinions and rhetorical hyperbole” are protected speech under the First Amendment, accusing a climate scientist of lying about his seemingly factual data is serious enough to warrant defamation claims.

“The allegedly defamatory aspect of this sentence is the statement that plaintiff ‘molested and tortured data,’ not the rhetorically hyperbolic comparison to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky,” Judge Weisberg wrote.

The statement “he has molested and tortured data” could easily be interpreted to mean that the plaintiff distorted, manipulated, or misrepresented his data. Certainly the statement is capable of a defamatory meaning, which means the questions of whether it was false and made with “actual malice” are questions of fact for the jury. … To state as a fact that a scientist dishonestly molests or tortures data to serve a political agenda would have a strong likelihood of damaging his reputation within his profession, which is the very essence of defamation.

Judge Weisberg denied CEI’s and National Review’s motions to dismiss the lawsuit.

In the real world, a defendant would normally settle after losing a motion to dismiss. Here the National Review and the CEI are far too stupid to realize that they are in trouble. These idiots can not believe that anyone would dare call them on their stupidity.

This will be a fun lawsuit to watch. I have been following this case since it was filed a couple of years ago.