Mann v. Competitive Enterprise Institute

In the climate scientist Michael Mann’s defamation case against two writers who authored blog posts characterizing Mann’s work as fraudulent and attributing misconduct to him, a jury in D.C. Superior Court found that statements made by the writers were defamatory, relied on provably false facts, and were false. For the defendant who called Mann “the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except for instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data,” the jury found that the plaintiff proved that the defendant acted with reckless disregard for whether the fact was false. The jury awarded Mann $1 in compensatory damages and $1,000 in punitive damages against that defendant. The jury found that the plaintiff proved that the other defendant made the defamatory statements with knowledge of their falsity and reckless disregard for whether they were false. The statements included the defendant’s quotation of the other defendant’s comparison of Mann to Jerry Sandusky and a statement describing him as “the man behind the fraudulent climate-change ‘hockey-stick’ graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus.” The jury awarded $1 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages against this defendant.

A trial began on January 16, 2024 in the climate scientist Michael Mann’s defamation case against two writers who authored blog posts characterizing Mann’s work as fraudulent and attributing misconduct to him. The trial has been covered in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/17/michael-mann-climate-scientist-defamation-lawsuit">Guardian</a>, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25012024/michael-mann-defamation-case-reaches-trial/">Inside Climate News</a>, and other publications. Closing arguments were held on February 7.

In climate scientist Michael Mann’s defamation lawsuit against individuals and organizations that published blog posts that characterized his work as fraudulent and attributed misconduct to him, a District of Columbia Superior Court denied summary judgment motions by the defendants on the issue of the individual authors’ “actual malice” and by Mann on the issue of the falsity of the blog posts. The court found, however, that Mann failed to offer evidence establishing that Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)—which published one of the blogs—acted with “actual malice.” (The court made a similar ruling in March 2021 with respect to National Review, Inc. the publisher of the other blog.) The court said this failure to establish actual malice was the result of the nature of the blog, which was “designed for low-effort management on the part of CEI, where outside writers enjoy a platform for their opinions, with only cursory review by a relatively low-ranking CEI employee prior to publication.” With respect to the author of the post on CEI’s blog, the court found that Mann offered “significant evidence” that would allow a reasonable jury to find that the author acted with actual malice. The court denied summary judgment on the issue of whether the article was false.

–

–

Two years after the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled that climate scientist Michael Mann could proceed with defamation claims against the authors and publishers of online articles, the appellate court responded to a petition for rehearing by issuing an amended opinion with only minor adjustments—the addition of one footnote and the revision of another. The appellate court thereby reaffirmed its conclusion that a reasonable jury could find that statements in two of the articles were false, defamatory, published by appellants to third parties, and made with actual malice. The articles accused Mann of scientific misconduct and compared his alleged misconduct to the conduct of Jerry Sandusky, a football coach at Penn State who was convicted of child sexual abuse.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied two petitions for writ of certiorari seeking review of a D.C. Court of Appeals decision that allowed climate scientist Michael Mann to proceed with a defamation lawsuit against the authors and publishers of articles attributing scientific misconduct to Mann. Justice Alito issued a written dissent asserting that the questions raised by the petitioners “go to the very heart of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and freedom of the press: the protection afforded to journalists and others who use harsh language in criticizing opposing advocacy on one of the most important public issues of the day.” Alito wrote that one of the questions raised—whether a court or a jury should determine the truth of allegedly defamatory statements—was a “delicate and sensitive” question that “has serious implications for the right to freedom of expression,” especially given the “highly technical” matter at issue in this case and the “intense feelings” that the issue of climate change arouses in the jury pool. Alito also said the petitioners raised the “very important question” of where to draw the line between “a pungently phrased expression of opinion regarding one of the most hotly debated issues of the day” (which Alito said would be protected by the First Amendment and “a statement that is worded as an expression of opinion but actually asserts a fact that can be proven in court to be false” (which the First Amendment would not protect). Alito noted that he recognized that the D.C. court’s decision was “interlocutory” and that an ultimate outcome adverse to the petitioners could be reviewed later, but he said requiring a “free speech claimant to undergo a trial after a ruling that may be constitutionally flawed is no small burden.”

–