Posted on 07/26/2019 6:52:53 PM PDT by Magnatron
A federal judge in Kentucky Friday threw out a defamation lawsuit filed against The Washington Post by Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann and his family over the paper's reporting of an incident between the young man and a Native American man this past January in Washington.
The lawsuit, which was filed in February, sought $250 million in damages and accused the Post of practicing "a modern-day form of McCarthyism" by targeting Sandmann and "using its vast financial resources to enter the bully pulpit by publishing a series of false and defamatory print and online articles ... to smear a young boy who was in its view an acceptable casualty in their war against the president."
Sandmann became the focus of outrage after a video of him standing face-to-face with a Native American man, Nathan Phillips, while wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat surfaced and rapidly spread online. Sandmann was one of a group of Covington students attending the anti-abortion March for Life in Washington, D.C., while Phillips was attending the Indigenous Peoples' March on the same day.
In a 36-page ruling, U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman noted that the Post never mentioned Sandmann by name in its initial coverage of the incident, referring only to groups of "hat wearing teens." Bertelsman added that "the words used contain no reflection upon any particular individual" and thus could not be constituted as defamation. The judge also ruled that the newspaper used language that was "loose, figurative," and "rhetorical hyperbole" which is protected by the First Amendment.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Hmmm. Why is he limiting his analysis to the "initial" coverage?
SO basically the judge is not denying there was defamation, just that if there was a plaintiff, the paper never targeted any one in particular ... Nah, I mean, the paper just promoted a general lynching of people with hats using inuendos, in collective disruption of peace frenzy, but no RICO grief in there to see...
What utter hypocrite bull sht
Exactly. Lots of money involved.
Another left wing judge. Moving on to the appeal stage. It is a slam dunk win for the kid when they get a fair judge.
83 year old Carter appointed judge.
Check the judge’s bank account (especially the one he might have in Switzerland) for some recent large deposits.
I wonder if he farmed out the judgement in Mueller fashion.
83??? That's gotta be more doddering than Bob Mueller...
Or carte blanche at Amazon (Bezos)
Yeah that makes no sense. IANAL, but I thought generally speaking questions of fact are to be determined at the trial - not by the judge. The judge could toss a case for a lot of reasons, particularly on matters of law. But the question of whether the plaintiff was defamed should be decided by the jury and by the discovery of all the evidence not just the “initial story”. Maybe a lawyer can chime in.
I don’t imagine they thought it would be easy.
But they used his picture with The accompanied article...
Our domestic enemies are each inspired by others to do all they personally can against America.
Bertelsman was nominated by President Jimmy Carter
Little doubt that he's senile, and that his law clerks wrote this opinion.
“It is a slam dunk win for the kid when they get a fair judge.”
Yeah, but it’s the “fair judge” part that’s the sticking point.
The establishment doesn’t like to lose to the peons. So the scales of justice will have a heavy thumb on them.
Tyrant
Nicholas Sandmann is every bit as “native American” as that old Indian bastard with the tom toms.
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