Anyone can file a suit. However as a public figure it'll be hard for Moore to prove malice on the part of the Post. Still it looks good during the remaining weeks of the campaign and if it gets dismissed it won't be until after the election day.
Not if the WaPo tried to bribe women to lie. That would be a clear indicator of malicious intent.
If the Post did “0” homework, then it can be construed as malice....it was meant to injure.
A lawsuit might focus the minds at the WaPo toward retracting their lies.
Per Wiki:
Goldwater v. Ginzburg
Link to case: https://www.leagle.com/decision/1969738414f2d3241661.xml
The issue arose in 1964 when Fact published the article “The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater”.[3][5] The magazine polled psychiatrists about American Senator Barry Goldwater and whether he was fit to be president.[6][7] The editor, Ralph Ginzburg, was sued for libel in Goldwater v. Ginzburg where Goldwater won $75,000 (approximately $579,000 today) in damages.[3]
Fact Magazine (Fact) was a corporation in New York. The defendant, Ralph Ginzburg, was the editor and publisher of Fact, and Warren Boroson, a co-defendant in this case, was the managing editor of Fact. The plaintiff, Barry Goldwater, was a United States Senator from Arizona and had been a 1964 presidential candidate. The defendants testified that they attended the July 1964 Republican National Convention and were not impressed with Senator Goldwater. Thus, they decided to warn the American people in an issue of their magazine (soon known as the “Goldwater issue”[2] of Fact) immediately after Goldwater’s nomination on July 16th.
The issue at hand was the article published by Fact titled “The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater” in the September-October 1964 issue. The magazine polled psychiatrists and asked if Goldwater was psychologically fit to serve as president.[3] Fact used the information given from the polls in the magazine article against Senator Goldwater. Senator Goldwater sued Fact Magazine, Inc., Ginzburg, and Boroson for “false, scandalous and defamatory statements referring to and concerning [the] plaintiff.” [2]
The court found that the evidence introduced at trial proved the defendants knew they were publishing defamatory statements and “were motivated by actual malice when they published the statements.”[2] The court found the defendants guilty of libel action based on the article Fact published. The plaintiff demanded $1,000,000 in compensatory and punitive damages but Senator Goldwater was awarded $1 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in punitive damages. The compensatory damages were against all defendants but the punitive damages were split between the defendants. Ginzburg and Boroson were liable for $25,000 of the $75,000 and Fact Magazine, Inc. was liable for $50,000. The United States Court of Appeals affirmed the award and the Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari (review); Justices Black and Justice Douglas joined a dissenting opinion, rather unusual at the time (1970) on orders denying “cert.”[4] Boroson was the only defendant not to file an appeal after receiving the ruling.
Quote from actual case report:
On July 16, immediately following Senator Goldwater’s nomination, Ginzburg and Boroson, desiring, so they testified, to alert the American people to the Ginzburg-Boroson-perceived dangers of a Goldwater presidency, decided to publish the “Goldwater issue” of Fact.1
They agreed that Boroson “would commence to gather research of every scrap of information in the public record that was relevant to a psychobiography of Goldwater,” and that Ginzburg would gather the opinions of psychiatrists across the land by means of a poll and then would write an article on Goldwater for publication in the magazine.
On July 16, 1964, before any research or polling had commenced, Boroson wrote a letter to Mr. Walter Reuther which
[414 F.2d 329]
asked for his comments about Senator Goldwater’s personality and which indicates that appellants had decided to asperse Senator Goldwater’s character on preconceived psychiatric or psychological grounds of their own fabrication. The Boroson letter to Mr. Reuther stated in part as follows:
I’m writing an article for Fact about an old enemy of yours — Barry Goldwater. It’s going to be a psychological profile, and will say, basically, that Goldwater is so belligerent, suspicious, hot-tempered, and rigid because he has deep-seated doubts about his masculinity. * * *
Nevertheless, regardless of how erroneous and offensive the publication, the Senator, because the publication was made while he was seeking a high office, is not permitted to recover defamation damages unless he can indeed prove that the publication, no matter now scurrilous, “was made with `actual malice’ — that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279-280, 84 S.Ct. 710, 726, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964). With this rule of law in mind, a rule necessary to preserve if we are to have a continuing robust approach to matters and men political, we turn to a discussion of the points appellants raise for our consideration and determination.
The “Goldwater issue,” appellants contend, even if it contained falsehoods, was protected speech under the First Amendment, and the interpretive New York Times and related decisions dictate that the court below should have granted appellants’ motion for summary judgment. We do not agree. False statements are protected only if they are honestly made. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra at 278, 84 S.Ct. 710.
The case is well worth the read for anyone interested in this topic that is pertinent to today’s FAKE NEWS.
Normally malice is very hard to prove—but these days we have hidden cameras and talkative media types—a good attorney who is a street-fighter could win this case.