“Life lesson... the psychology unleashed by the woke and offended is a greater clinical question than his “provocative” manner, because he directly asserts his speech and won’t stop.”
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Good post.
Nice defamation development.. out of 2nd Circuit, NY.
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” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Wednesday that a district court had improperly dismissed former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, allowing a new trial of the case.
As Breitbart News reported in February 2022, U.S. Judge Jed S. Rakoff, a Bill Clinton appointee to the federal bench in the Southern District of New York, dismissed the case even as jurors were still deliberating over the verdict.
Palin sued the Times over a 2017 editorial in which it said that she had inspired the 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Judge Rakoff initially dismissed the case, but it was revived by a federal appeals court. After the presentation of arguments in initial motions, Rakoff decided that Palin had enough evidence to allow the case to go to trial — a rarity in defamation suits by public figures against the media, since the standard of proving “actual malice” is usually too high for plaintiffs to clear.
Moreover, Rakoff sent the case to the jury after closing arguments last week. But on Monday, as NPR’s David Folkenflik reported, he had second thoughts, and said Palin failed to meet the “actual malice” standard because of the Times‘s correction, and then-editorial page editor James Bennet’s contrition.
The jury found against Palin and in favor of the Times, but only after it learned of Rakoff’s decision to dismiss the case. “
Part 2
” A three-judge panel of the Second Circuit — including two George W. Bush appointees, and one Donald Trump appointee — held Wednesday that Rakoff had acted improperly, and ordered a new trial.
From the decision:
We first reinstated the case in August 2019 following an initial dismissal by the district court (Rakoff, J.) under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Palin’s claim was subsequently tried before a jury but, while the jury was deliberating, the district court dismissed the case again—this time under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50. We conclude that the district court’s Rule 50 ruling improperly intruded on the province of the jury by making credibility determinations, weighing evidence, and ignoring facts or inferences that a reasonable juror could plausibly have found to support Palin’s case. “
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” ABC News quoted the Times‘ reaction: “This decision is disappointing. We’re confident we will prevail in a retrial.”
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